


The Cutting Room Floor

by CrackingLamb



Series: Til It Squeaks: A Modern Girl's Take on Thedas [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Additional Characters to Be Added As They Show Up, Adoribull in Chapter 27, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Flirting, Humor, Inner Circle shenanigans, Missing Scene, Not In Chronological Order, Now With Screenshots!, Snippets, Swearing, Tags Will Get Added On To
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 30,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23789257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrackingLamb/pseuds/CrackingLamb
Summary: A collection of short scenes and snippets that had no place in Twist, but fill in some of the blanks.  Some are funny, some are sweet, some are...not.Chapters 1-31 are snippetsChapters 32-42 are deleted scenes
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Series: Til It Squeaks: A Modern Girl's Take on Thedas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830358
Comments: 371
Kudos: 119





	1. The Things We're Missing

**Author's Note:**

> If you aren't reading Twist, Carly is a MGIT, who knows that Solas is Fen'Harel (and flat out told him so), is BFF's with Varric and is both having the time of her life and wondering how the hell she's going to get out of this mess.
> 
> This snippet takes place on the Storm Coast, just after Carly has recruited Iron Bull and the Chargers.

The rain didn't bother Carly as much as she thought it would. No, what bothered her more was the stones on the beach constantly turning her ankles as she walked. Still, she sat down among them, wiggling until she was comfortable. She watched the waves crash from a reasonably safe distance, listened to the birds call and pretended for a moment she was in Maine, on the coast, and that any minute she'd hear a fog horn, or a trawler bringing back fresh lobsters or...

“You all right?” a growling voice broke in. She turned her head and saw Varric, the satiny blue of his shirt almost muted in the rain and gloom of the Storm Coast.

“Yeah, just feeling...nostalgic.”

“The ass end of nowhere makes you feel nostalgic?” He was incredulous on the surface, but she could see warmth in his eyes that shouted 'sympathetic' instead. He settled down next to her, grumbling at the wet stones.

“When I was a kid, before we moved to the City...and that's city with a capital C...my parents and I went on vacation to the coast. We spent the first night in a little fishing village, not much to see, wasn't actually our final destination. I must have been...oh, ten or so? Anyway. After dinner, we walked down to the beach and just watched the ocean for a while. Growing up, we lived inland, so the ocean was big and special and amazing.”

She trailed off, looking out as far into the horizon as she could. The massive stone pillars detracted from her internal fiction that this was just Maine, but other than that, it was the same. Varric watched her watching the water and enjoying the salt spray mixed with the rain and shook his head.

“Every time I think I've got you pegged, you throw in a new angle. You've done well, you know. Nowadays I couldn't tell you weren't born an archer, or that you hadn't lived with this nonsense your whole life.”

She turned a smile on him. “Thanks, Varric. Can I ask you what you miss most of home?”

He smiled, but it wasn't _at_ her so much as in her direction. His whole face took on a different expression, one she'd seen only when he talked about Bianca in the game. “Marian.”

“Ah, of course.” She shifted around on the stones some more, ended up actually pulling one out from under her that had too sharp edges. She tossed it to plunk into the shallows, the sound lost in the wind and tide. “There were probably good years that the game totally glossed over, huh?”

“How many did it cover?” he asked, with no hint that this might be a weird topic of conversation for him.

“Six? Kinda seven? It starts with Hawke leaving Lothering after Ostagar, but the game doesn't really begin until the next year, when she was free from what's his name. Then it goes to the start of the Mage Rebellion. Anders and his big boom, Knight Commander Meredith's sudden stunningly realistic impression of a red lyrium statue.”

“Don't remind me,” he muttered.

“Sorry. Easy for me to forget that you lived it and I could walk away from it any time.”

“Well, to answer your question, yeah, there were good times in there. A couple years where Kirkwall was pretty peaceful. Wish I'd known then what I know now. I'd have made it last more.”

She leaned over and rested her head on his arm. “Yeah, I know how that goes. My parents died when I was just 18. Drunk driver hit them as they walked home from a dinner date on their anniversary.”

“Shit...”

“Yeah.”

“What's a drunk driver?”

For some reason, even in the midst of her remembering the darkest moment of her life, she laughed. She laughed hard enough to fall over on the stones, earning herself a whack on the elbow from one of them. He eyed her with something like concern and she made an effort to control herself.

“Oh, I'm sorry. It's the little things that make me forgot, ya know?” She sobered up and tried to think of the best way to put it. “We don't ride horses anymore in my world. Our...carriages, I guess you'd call them, have internal engines that run on oil and gasoline – that's a liquid that burns at a steady rate – and we drive them ourselves. I'm sure you know what a drunk is. Put the two together and you have a nasty combination.”

“Yeah, I can see that. However belated it is, and coming from someone you've known for what...a month? I'm sorry for your loss, Carly. I lost my parents too.”

“Yeah, I know you did. And thanks. Some things stay with you, don't they?”

“Yeah, they do.”

She leaned on his arm again, and with just a little bit of shifting around, he lifted it to drop across her back, and held her close. She smiled into the wet leather of his duster. “You're a good man, Varric. She's lucky to have you around.”

“I'm the lucky one.”

“Oh please. She's a disaster who would have died how many times if not for you?”

“That's creepy.”

She tilted her head back so she could see his face. “What, that I know that?”

“Uh huh.”

She grinned. “I've been her, remember? How's that for creepy?”

“It's worse. It's so much worse.”

“Meh, just don't overthink it,” she said on a laugh.

“C'mon, we're just sitting here getting soaked. When we could be sitting in presumably nice, dry tents eating a hot dinner. Anything's gotta be better than sitting out here...in the outdoors.”

She grinned at him, some things the game had gotten totally spot on. She stood up and cast a final glance out over the water. “Yeah, you're right.”


	2. Ever Onwards and Upwards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do your companions always stand on top of things? Takes place early in the story, while still in the Hinterlands.

Carly stood up from picking elfroot leaves and saw Solas standing on top of a column marking the roadway. Varric was next to Cass. They had moved off to the edge of the roadway to look over the valley where druffalo lowed to each other in a broad fenced in pen. She leaned back on her heels, peering at Solas as he calmly scanned the Hinterlands from his vantage point.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking,” he replied.

“For anything in particular, or do you just like being tall? I mean, taller than you already are.”

He glanced down at her, his eyes twinkling with something resembling mirth. Traveling with him was different than sitting with him in a space where he could be himself. If anything, he was quieter on the road, only occasionally making comments on the beauty of the terrain, or mourning the loss of whatever had been there that was now burning in the wake of the Mage Rebellion. They were always idle observations, giving away nothing of himself.

He was seeing the world with fresh eyes, she knew. Just as she was. It was common ground and yet they stood on opposite sides of it.

Later they were in the center of the crossroads, the milling refugees of the war and Inquisition scouts mingling easily, although none of them were truly at ease with tensions so high. She needed to get on that. At least they weren't starving or freezing anymore with winter approaching rapidly. She stopped at the one merchant still operating in the chaos to trade off the weapons she knew she wouldn't use for more supplies she knew she would. The cart shifted in front of her, a shadow fell across her.

“Solas, really?”

He turned down to her from where he stood, one foot braced on a crate as he looked around. “The world is unpredictable. Even here we are not safe from ambush. It behooves us to keep a sharp eye on the surroundings always.”

She made a face at him. “Get your dirty, bare foot out of the corn, dummy. That's gross.”

He shot her a look both abashed and defiant and she laughed. She noticed, however, that he did move his foot from the produce, walking to the end of the cart and balancing himself there instead. She shook her head and went back to her trading, catching the grateful eye of the merchant as she did. She refused his coin when her trading ended up lopsided in her favor, and told him to hand out the extras if he felt that bad about it. The people needed the assurance of a good weapon more than she needed gold. She knew she'd end up with more of it than she could spend sooner or later.

She felt more than saw Solas's eyes on her as she dickered with the young merchant, but she didn't turn to meet his gaze.

They left the crossroads and moved on. Varric and Cassandra bickered back and forth as they walked, and Carly tuned it out, already familiar with their sniping. Solas walked next to her, his steps barely making any sound on the well tread paths while her boots clunked on every stone.

“That was a generous act,” he said presently.

“What was?”

“Refusing the coin. You surprise me.”

She shrugged. “We have our own supplies, I keep finding stuff we'll never use, might as well let it go to someone who can. I don't worry about the gold. I have no pressing need of it.”

“It was still generous.”

She paused, ostensibly to let Cass and Varric catch up and met Solas's eye. “I guess. Thanks.”

Before he could say anything further – and she could tell he wanted to from the frown lines forming – her hand sparked. She rolled her eyes and looked for the telltale signs of the rift. If the Anchor had flared to life, that meant they were close. Solas saw her shift in body language and swung his staff off his shoulder. She heard the ratchet of Bianca being loaded and the draw of Cass's sword.

“All right, gang, let's do this.”

Closing rifts was both satisfying and tiring. The demons she could do without, truth be told, but they weren't horrible. Not yet. And between her companions they mostly had it covered while she concentrated on pushing back the bits of the Fade that had bled through to the waking world. Solas perched on the rock at her side, his staff a blur of motion in the corner of her eye. The rift sealed with a pop and she took a breather.

“You are becoming quite proficient at that,” he commented.

“Practice makes perfect.”

She took in the aftermath of the fight, the gleaming puddles of Fade stuff, the disturbed soil and torn up grass, the broken limbs of trees. Beyond the glade she could see the whole of the Hinterlands spread out, a wide panorama of rolling hills, crofts and farms. Redcliffe Castle nearly lost in the distance on the horizon. Okay, maybe she could understand why he liked a high vantage point with which to look out on their surroundings.

“Has it changed much?” she asked before she could think twice about it.

“Yes.”

Again before she could think to stop herself, she put a hand on his arm. A comforting squeeze, a bit of shared sorrow at what war had done to this land. He let her. Varric drew her attention as he opened a chest tucked away in the most shadowed corner of the glade.

“You mind if I take these?” He held up a pair of wicked looking daggers.

She smiled. “Go for it.”

They moved on. On and on, and on and on again.


	3. A Gift of Studies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly finds peace and quiet in the midst of the chaos that is her life in Haven.
> 
> Solas just likes to draw.

“Keep your hand still,” Solas said softly. She turned her head and saw him hunched over a leather bound sketchbook, his gaze moving between the page and her hand where it was outstretched casually off the end of the chair. She must have fallen asleep at some point, since now she was waking up.

“Are you...drawing me?”

“Yes.” His eyes were rapidly shifting back and forth, his brow furrowed as he sketched. She couldn't see the page from her angle in the chair, but that was all right. She knew plenty of artists who didn't let anyone see until a piece was finished. Still...

“You let me fall asleep, didn't you? So you could sketch the Anchor?”

He paused for the merest moment, not quite looking at her. “In a manner of speaking.”

“You could have just asked.” He made a tiny noise, almost a denial. She let a small smile cross her lips, one that he didn't see. She'd accused him of having a malicious compliance with the truth, knowing that he didn't lie if he could help it, but allowed people to misinterpret his words. He still did it with her, it was such a habit. But the pause had told her far more than his words did.

She watched the fire burn and listened to the scrape of pencil against paper. The wind kicked up outside, battering the windows of his _new_ borrowed cottage. Snow swirled. Now that winter's teeth had arrived in Haven, Adan had moved back into his shop, leaving Solas to move next door to a previously empty space. It was small and just one room, but it was cozy. It was still her favorite place to be when they weren't on the move. Didn't matter that they spent more time arguing, often quite loudly, when in turn there were moments like this.

“You truly mean that?” he asked suddenly. She hadn't figured out how he did that yet. But it was undeniable that he could hear her thoughts as if they were his own.

“That this is my favorite place to be in Haven? Or that the good times outweigh the stubborn elf likes to argue times? Both. I enjoy your company.”

“Thank you.” He ignored her comments on his stubbornness; she was just as bad. Fen'Harel and a human cast across dimensions into an elven body. What a pair they were.

He sat up finally, brushing his hand across the paper to clear it of graphite dust. She flexed her hand at his nod, not realizing until then how cramped it was from her effort not to move while he drew. He watched her now, hands steepled under his chin, eyes steady. She wasn't sure she was comfortable under that artist's focus.

“I should go,” she said. “I'm sure I've been here for hours.”

He quirked a small smile at her. “You are not going to ask to see?”

“Art is private, isn't it? I wouldn't presume.”

His head tilted and he held out the sketchbook, waiting for her to take it. She took it carefully, opening it to the page he'd been working on. In repose her fingers curled, the slash of the Anchor across her palm nearly hidden. Her wrist bones were sharp against her skin, the veins crawling under skin, the tendons relaxed. Three nails were broken and jagged. Every detail was there, right down to the cut marring the side of her pinky. It was entirely different than the style he would use when he did his murals.

“It's very good,” she said. She fought an urge to flip through the pages, to see what else he sketched when no one was paying attention. He was allowing her to see a piece of himself that few got to see. She could never abuse that.

He leaned over and turned the page himself. _There_ was the truth he'd been misdirecting. The page was covered in several small drawings of her face, from every angle. One with her hair down, tumbling around her shoulders, making her look so much younger than she felt. One of her sleeping. One grimacing in concentration as she shot her bow, her expression so fierce she almost didn't recognize herself. There was a glimpse by firelight, shadows heavy across her features. Her profile as she looked at something. The face she made when she was trying not to laugh. He'd captured all her candid moments with bold, confident lines.

She met his eyes across the space and couldn't think of a single thing to say that wouldn't embarrass them both. Most of these had to be from memory, which implied that he looked at her often enough to know the details. Something settled into her belly, something fluttering, warm and afraid. She was torn between snark as a defense and blushing. And he knew it too. He took the sketchbook back from her hands.

“Yes, you have been here for hours,” he said. He stood up and tucked away his drawing things before turning back to her. “I should not take so much of your time.”

“I freely give it,” she said before she could stop herself.

“Then I shall cherish the gift of it,” he returned with a smile. Her breath caught and her mind went completely blank. He meant it, and that was dangerous. This wasn't the game, where she could just _pretend_ their emotions were real. They _were_ real.

“Anytime,” she said, taking a steadying breath. She stood up to leave and had nearly made it to the door before he caught up to her, his fingers sliding against her hand, setting off goosebumps up her arm.

“I am glad you find peace here, Carly. I am glad I can provide it, regardless of everything else.”

“And I thank you for it. Really.”

“Until next time, then.”


	4. Peaches and Cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly gets a nickname. Takes place in Haven, very early in the story.

Varric smiled in welcome as she approached his little fire. She stood next to him and they watched the flames for a while in silence. At last he shuffled on his feet and looked up at her.

“So, going from the most wanted criminal in Thedas to the Herald of Andraste. Most people would have spread that out over more than one day.”

“How long have you been saving that up?” she asked with a grin. He grinned back.

“Predictable, eh? I'll have to work on that.”

“Nah, don't bother. It's not predictability to me, it's consistency.”

He barked a laugh at that and shook his head. “That actually makes sense in a crazy way. Ya know, you're quite the treat. Unexpected, sweet and fresh. Like peaches and cream.”

“Oh no, I suspect I just got a Varric Tethras nickname,” she said with mock dismay. His eyes twinkled.

“You might have. It suits you. Peaches.” He nodded, decision made. “Yeah, I like it.”

She grinned at him. “It'll do.”

“So tell me, just how much of this shit do you know?”

“All of it.”

“That's a lot to handle.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Think you've got it handled?”

“Not at all,” she laughed. “It's easier having you know. Well, you and Solas. I can talk about things that otherwise would hit me like a ton of bricks.” She looked around the camp, watched Cullen and Cass working with the soldiers outside the main gate. “We can't get too comfortable here.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“All of this nonsense is ominous. But don't worry, it all works out in the end. At least...on my side it does.”

“Your side?”

“Of reality. I need to stop thinking like that. I'm here now, and I can't get back until I deal with this.” She waved at the Breach in an offhand way that still didn't belie her dread of it.

Varric followed her gesture, looking at the tear in the sky. “You think that's how you got here?”

“Yeah. Everything that happened at the Conclave was before my time, so to speak. I think the person that fell out of the Fade was me, arriving here. Can't believe I survived a fall like that.”

“It was touch and go for a while. Solas kept you alive in more ways than one.”

“I figured as much.” She knew they joined up here, that Solas had walked into Haven and surrendered his staff as soon as the Breach happened. She wondered what he'd been expecting in the initial aftermath. “So you stayed because you're not as selfish and irresponsible as you like to pretend, but really, why did you? You could have gone back to Kirkwall as soon as shit got scary.”

“Shit isn't any less scary in Kirkwall, ya know. This is just...more pressing. If we don't get this sorted out, there won't be anywhere that isn't scary. That hole in the sky spits out demons, in case you missed it. I can't walk away from that.”

“I'm glad you're here, Varric.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, a welcoming, comforting weight. “Well, you need someone to keep you in line.”

She snorted. “Thanks.”

“Any time, Peaches.”


	5. The Best Boys In the Hinterlands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Collecting shards can be a pain in the neck, but with this group of idiots, there's too much fun going on to care.

“Hey Boss, you want me to try?”

Carly glanced at Bull, squinted really, since the sun was glinting off his eyepatch. “Go for it, sexy.”

He grinned and leapt easily onto the first row of rough, hexagonal stones like she had before her ignominious tumble to her ass. He flexed impressively to make her laugh and she watched him get as far as the next level up before he disappeared in the gap...just like she had. He cursed under his breath. Varric laughed. Solas just shook his head at the lot of them, although he still extended a hand to Carly to help her to her feet.

She felt his grip tighten on her and looked at him. “What's the matter?”

“Your hand...”

The palm of her left hand was scraped raw from her fall. She'd tried to catch herself on the stone before giving up the ghost. She shrugged. “It's fine.”

“You should take greater care,” he said, admonishing. She pulled her fingers out of his grasp and raised a sardonic eyebrow at him.

“All the shit we go through, and that's what you're concerned about? Some scrapes on my hand?”

“You need that hand.”

Varric snorted behind them. “I'll pretend I didn't hear that.”

“Shush, you. He doesn't mean it like that, jeez.”

Bull finally vaulted himself out of the nook into which he'd fallen and huffed like his namesake. “All right, I give up.”

“Thanks for trying, Bull. Guess I'll just have to manage it myself.” She left the three of them on the ground and took her time, leaping lightly from stone to stone, determined not to miss the gap this time. She crowed when she made the other side, then looked up at the next tier, almost higher than her head. “Aw, shit.”

She managed to climb up the rocks without falling again – which was good considering the height. She carefully didn't get distracted by Solas closing his eyes so he didn't have to watch. She inched her way across the narrow ledge, hearing the shard hum. She snagged it with her free hand and tossed it over her shoulder.

“Catch!” she called to the trio below. Then laughed as they scrambled for it before it hit the ground. She managed to sit on the edge of the rocks and watched them for a moment. Already, not two months into this whole _other world_ endeavor, she thought there weren't three other men she would rather have at her side for anything. Well...if she could have the three of them and Dorian, anyway.

 _Soon enough_ , she thought to herself.

Varric was dusting off his hands, Bull was looking at the shard like it was an animate menace that might bite and Solas was looking at...her. Head cocked to the side in that Elvhen way he had, eyes narrowed and thoughtful. She grinned at him, wrinkling her nose while she did.

Varric must have caught it, since he looked up too to see her gazing down at them. “Now how you gonna get down, Peaches?”

“I'll jump.”

Bull handed off the shard to Solas and opened his arms with a big grin. “C'mon, I'll catch you.”

She snorted and got to her feet carefully. “I don't doubt that. Not sure I want to risk the horns, though. Nah, I'll be good, before Solas has apoplexy.”

“I am hardly apoplectic, Herald,” he said mildly. She could hear the undercurrent of that, plain as day. Chiding but humoring her while she teased. The public face of the apostate and the Herald of Andraste. She grinned again.

She dropped down tier by tier, and only jumped when she knew she could land without hurting herself. She brushed herself off and they left the dragon's lair to go back to camp. “How many more of those do we need to get?”

“Four, I believe,” Solas said as they went through the twisting tunnel. Carly nodded as she stooped to pick the last of the Royal Elfroot before she forgot...again.

“Let's wait til tomorrow. I'm beat.”

“Does that mean I should earn my keep by entertaining while someone else makes dinner?” Varric asked.

“Yes.”

“Hah!” Bull barked. “You know all his stories are bullshit, right?”

“Of course. Those are the best kind. Can't wait to hear the ones he'll tell about me.”

Carly hung back behind them as they walked into camp and settled into their usual routine – Bull polishing that axe of his, Varric settling down with a thoughtful face to think up a good tale, Solas quietly tucking the shard into a leather satchel with the others they'd found. Yeah, there really wasn't anyone else she'd rather be with if she was going to be stuck here.


	6. Noble Savage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly and Madame de Fer will never see eye to eye...

Pissed off the Templars. Check.

Unraveled the Red Jenny puzzle. Check.

Met Sera for drinks. Check.

Now Carly, Varric, Cassandra and Sera were riding hell bent for leather to Madame de Fer's party. They settled into rooms at an inn and she changed into something more suitable for Vivienne's party. Of course, all she had with her was clean scout armor, but it would do.

“I wish we did not have to do this,” Cass muttered as she brushed the back of Carly's shoulders, tidying up the leather of the scout coat.

“You don't have to go. I'll be fine on my own for one night, Seeker.”

“I know. It is more the political game I wish we did not have to play.”

“Ah, well...I can't help you much there.”

“No, I suppose not,” Cass said, a thread of amusement in her voice. “I know I do not say this often, Lady Lavellan, but you have done a good job. I know it is not the life you would have chosen...”

“It's not, but we all have to make the best of our circumstances, right? I appreciate that you think I'm doing well.”

“I do.” She gave herself a little shake, as if she was wiping the whole subject from her head. “Now, be careful and ignore their grumblings that you are Dalish.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Carly grinned and Cass actually smiled back. Carly left their shared room with a spring in her step. It was never a bad thing to be on good terms with one's party members, after all.

Now if only she could have carried that feeling through the night...

“The Inquisition,” the anticipated Marquis sneered as he came down the stairs. Carly turned to him, noting that in real life, his mask was even more stupid to look at. “What a load of pig shit. Washed-up sisters and crazed Seekers? No one can take them seriously. Everyone knows it's just an excuse for a bunch of political outcasts to grab power. And look, led by a knife eared savage, no less. Whatever is the world coming to?”

Carly said nothing, knowing fully well that he wouldn't get what he expected from her, and that Vivienne would be arriving momentarily to freeze him half solid anyway. And sure enough, he froze in place, one hand behind his head. A waft of cold air brushed over her as the Enchantress made her entrance, her voice carrying easily over the crowd so no one could doubt for a second that she was in charge of this little play. Carly let her carry on, not really caring either way. Some things were scripted, it seemed. And when offered her choice of what to do with the Marquis, she let Vivienne decide, not about to show either mercy or ruthlessness before this Court just yet. She was just a guest, right?

When it was over, Vivienne finally turned to her. “I'm delighted you could attend my little gathering. I've so wanted to meet you.”

“Charmed.”

“Shall we speak?” Carly followed her into a quiet corridor away from the onlookers still tittering over the Marquis's ignominious retreat. “As the leader of the last _loyal_ mages of Thedas, I feel it only right that I lend my assistance to your cause,” Vivienne said once they were out of earshot. Carly carefully schooled her expression. She hadn't decided whether or not the Circles were something she was willing to rebuild. Not while Tranquility loomed its ugly head over them.

“What exactly can you do for the Inquisition?” she asked.

“I am well versed in the politics of the Orlesian Empire. I know every member of the Imperial Court personally. I have all the resources remaining to the Circle at my disposal. And I'm a mage of no small talent. Will that do?”

“Certainly. The Inquisition will be happy to have you, Lady Vivienne.”

“Wonderful, my dear. Now, shall we return to the fete? I must confess I am enjoying the idea of such a nobly unique personage among my guests.”

“Unique? Oh, because I'm Dalish, you mean?” The Grand Enchantress nodded regally. Carly let slip a tiny smirk. “I don't doubt it. It's not every day you let a wolf loose among the sheep.”

For a split second, Vivienne's lips tightened and her eyes skimmed across Carly's valleslin; she hadn't expected wit. She especially hadn't expected wit she couldn't counter without admitting that Carly had a point about Orlesians. She wondered if Vivienne already knew they would not get along well. “Quite. I do hope you will enjoy yourself.”

“Oh, I shall, thank you. Now I'm sure I've monopolized your attention long enough. I'll see you at Haven, won't I?”

“Indeed. Great things are beginning, my dear. I can promise you that.”

“I'm sure of it.” _Just not the beginning you think it is...my dear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really debated on whether or not I should post this one. I'm not super in love with it, other than the sweet moment between Carly and Cass. But it's the only mention in this worldstate of Viv at all, since she doesn't appear in Twist. Thoughts?


	7. Really...After Everything, a Bear?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rifts and demons and bears, oh my!

The rift surged, sending sensation up her arm like a long distance electric shock. She cried, “It's amping up again!”

Solas and Dorian both nodded, preparing themselves to protect her back as they waited for the cycle to finish and she could close the rift entirely. She was always so vulnerable then. Bull stood nearby, puffing for breath in the respite.

The rift shot out twin beams of Fade light, solidifying into both a rage and despair demon. Bull bellowed a challenge, drawing their attention away from Carly. Dorian took on the despair demon with his fire, while Solas worked on the rage demon with ice. Carly watched the rift for the subtle change that would tingle in her hand when it was ready for closing. The three of them danced around her, keeping her always protected from the pair of demons and the host of shades that came through with them.

The rift closed with a pop and a small explosion that ruffled her clothes and hair and it was over. They all looked at each other, a common practice now, wordlessly checking for injury. Especially since this was the third rift today. There were none that were serious and they exited the little cave after she rooted through the Fade gunk to find whatever materials the demons left. It wasn't much, but she accepted the small vial from Solas to scoop up the spirit essence that remained. It was useful to her researchers if nothing else.

The sun was bright as they headed back towards camp. So bright that they didn't see the bear until it roared at them, barreling into Bull and knocking him back before he could swing his battelaxe off his shoulder. The bear kept coming, easily tossing both Solas and Dorian off their feet entirely, heavy paws landing between them so hard the ground shuddered. Carly hadn't even put her bow away yet and took her first shot without pausing for breath. She kept shooting, drawing the bear's attention away from the downed mages so they could get to their feet. She saw blood and doubled her efforts as Bull swung into the bear from behind.

The bear ignored Bull, roaring again and advanced on her. She took a chance between shots and threw a handful of caltrops on the ground, retreating behind them, drawing the beast into the trap. Once it was there, stuck among the tiny spikes, she loaded an explosive arrow and hit it between the eyes, impossible to miss this close. It swiped at her but missed as she jumped back another step just as the explosion went off. Dorian was on his feet, throwing down a fire glyph, but Solas lay still. Jagged fear filled her and she shouted as she shot at the bear again and again, not keeping track of her arrows until she ran out.

Luckily Bull slammed the battleaxe into the bear's skull. The beast fell to the ground, lifeless. Carly ran to Solas, a potion already in her hand. He was awake enough to drink it, the massive gash through his armor across his torso showing skin below with deep bloody stripes.

“After all the shit you've lived through, you are _not_ dying to a fucking bear,” she snarled quietly. He just gave her a smirk as he swallowed down the potion.

“The Elvhen...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. They don't die so easily. Save it, buster. I didn't need this kind of stress today.”

His hand covered hers where she checked the edges of his torn armored robes The whole of it was ruined, she'd had to make him a new set. Luckily, it appeared they had a whole bearskin. She stopped her frantic patting and probing and met his eyes, the silver blue dancing with suppressed humor. “I am fine, Carly.”

“You're damn lucky, is what you are.”

He sat up gingerly, finishing off the potion. She watched, fascinated, as the raking cuts stopped bleeding and closed up in front of her eyes. He got to his feet and they turned together to see Bull happily skinning the bear while Dorian looked on, faintly green around the gills.

“We good?” she asked.

“Never better, Boss,” Bull said. “This is the best kind of day. Only thing better would have been a dragon.”

Dorian cocked an eyebrow, and the fact that he could still be so irrepressibly cavalier told her he was most likely fine. Solas alone had borne the brunt of the attack. “Right, back to camp, mages. Bull and I will finish this. Don't argue, Solas,” she added before she even saw him open his mouth. “You need more healing.”

“Yes, lethallan.”

“Go on you.” She waited until the mages disappeared around the curve of rocks blocking their way to camp before she met Bull's eye. He didn't say anything, but then again, he didn't have to. Her hands were shaking so badly now she could barely help him pull the skin off the beast.

“I got this, Boss. Go on, I'll catch up.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You're a treasure.”

“Yeah, I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene actually happened in my game. My Inky and Co. sealed a rift somewhere in the Hinterlands, left the cave and immediately walked into a bear that mauled the Void out of us. No one had been injured at all during the rift closing, the entire party was left at half health after the stupid damn bear. 
> 
> And the idea for this series of companion snippets was born. This was the first one actually written.


	8. A Little Extra Fen'Harel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly takes Solas alone to fight a demon.

She left Dorian and Bull squabbling over...whatever it was today, and hooked an arm in Solas's. “C'mon, you and I can finish up that thing with the 'grandfather'.”

He raised an eyebrow in query, but didn't pull away from her grasp. They hiked out into the valley and she found the column she was supposed to circle three times. Solas stood back and watched, one arm supporting the other as he rested his chin in his hand. The look on his face seemed to be stuck on 'what is the crazy person doing now?' She finished up her final circuit around the column and waited for the rumble of the demon as it erupted from the ground.

Solas threw a barrier over them, an automatic response to anything these days, and whipped his staff around practically before the demon had fully risen. Carly stood beside him, shooting arrows into the trunk of the thing, every now and then adding an explosive one to the mix. Much sooner than she anticipated, the fight was over and the demon had fallen back into the ground, leaving behind a small pile of goop.

“Did you just add some extra Fen'Harel to that?” she asked as she gingerly dug through the ooze for anything useful.

“Some...what?”

She grinned at him. “What? It's just the two of us, no need to hide. That went down too easily.”

He gave her an appraising look. “You knew that you and I could handle it alone, did you not?”

“Yup. I always do it in the game with just you. Taking the whole group just means you all get in my way, because heaven forbid characters stay where you ask them to go.”

“You can tell us where to go? What to do?”

“In theory. It's a game mechanic, allows the player to set up parameters for fighting and sometimes puzzles. Since, ya know, we can't actually talk to each other outside of cut scenes. Oh, and I'm pretty sure some of those puzzles were designed by you, incidentally.” She mock glared at him. “Remind me to make you do all the hard parts when we get there.”

He chuckled. “Anything worth doing...”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Is worth making it a pain in the ass.” She wiped her hands clean on the grass and pocketed the belt she'd found to examine later. “You didn't answer the question, by the way.”

“If I added...what did you call it? A little extra Fen'Harel?”

She grinned at him again. “Yeah. That's normally a pretty tough fight for two. Unless I put it off until I'm way overpowered, at which point I've usually plumb forgotten to do it. So, did you?”

His face grew canny. “I might have.”

“I knew it,” she snorted. “I could get used to that, you know.”

“As could I.”

“I bet. All right, mage with godlike powers, let's get back before they noticed we left.”

“Are you certain they will still be bickering?”

“Either that or making out. Those two are so cute I could vomit, but it takes a while for them to get there.”

“You have such a curious way of looking at the world, Carly.”

“Yeah, well, I gotta live vicariously through somebody, might as well be them.”

“Will there be no vomit inducing adoration in your own life?” he asked, almost casually, as they walked back to camp.

“Probably not. Who would want to tangle with the girl with the glowing hand?”

“Who, indeed.”

She let the wry tone of that pass and they arrived back at camp in time to see Bull and Dorian pull away from each other. She didn't think anything had been going on, judging from the looks of things, but they might have gotten close to it, since they'd been in each other's faces like they were snarling. Bull passed his all too knowing eye over her and Solas and his face grew smug. She just tilted her head at him. _Right back at'cha, dude_. He smiled.

“Good hunting?” Dorian asked airily, as if a change of subject was exceedingly well timed.

“Yeah. You?”

“I have no idea to what you may be referring.” The track of his gaze gave him away and she suppressed a smile.

“Uh huh. Sure, we can go with that.”


	9. Can't a Girl Get Some Space?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes getting to the shards is the easiest part.

Carly shimmied onto the ledge that formed the foundation of the cottage, wondering not for the first time why so many Thedosian homes were round. The shard hummed and glistened and she crouched down to pick it up, looking it over. It was rare to find them so easily, and in a moment when she could really look at them. She tucked the stone in her knapsack and stood up to see Varric, Bull and Solas actually pushing and shoving each other at the other end of the ledge.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked.

Bull gave a grunt as Varric slammed into his knees. “Just following your lead.”

“You didn't have to follow me up here. I got what we came for.”

Solas put out a hand, effectively and simply blocking Bull from pushing him backwards. Carly crossed her arms and stared at them, confounded by the display. Varric seemed to have gotten caught between them and didn't seem to know which way was up all of a sudden. He barreled into Bull, who backed up and barreled into her, knocking her off the ledge to land hard on the ground below.

“I swear, the three of you are like rowdy schoolchildren,” she snapped. All three of them stopped their shoving match and looked down at her scowling face. Solas, at least, had the grace to look embarrassed. _Trickster god indeed_ , she thought to herself. _More like a naughty little boy_. Then she knew he heard it, because the flush on his face deepened, reddening his cheeks enough that his freckles disappeared.

Varric was trying to untangle his dagger hilts from Bull's belt while Bull just returned her scowl with a grin. She threw her hands in the air and stalked off, knowing they'd rush to follow. Sure enough, she heard two pairs of feet hit the ground with thumps. Solas didn't make any sound at all, but she wasn't surprised that he was the first to catch up to her.

“You're all ridiculous together,” she said under her breath.

“Levity is a good sign of a working relationship,” he rejoined, ever serene and calm. It made her batty. She stepped sideways intentionally, pushing her shoulder into his arm, throwing him off his stride so he stumbled.

“Levitate that.” He frowned at her, and she couldn't help the grin that crossed her face. “You earned it.”

“Are you planning to push Iron Bull around like that as well?”

She looked over her shoulder at the Qunari walking a few paces behind them, Varric huffing at his side as he jogged to keep up. “I might.” She looked back at Solas. “It's more fun with you, though. You get so...disgruntled. It's cute.”

He raised an eyebrow at her and said nothing. The sunlight hit him the right way as they passed through the trees and she saw the tips of his ears were red. And she smiled to herself. It wasn't that he was cranky, he was...what exactly _was_ he?

She laughed. “What's the matter? Not used to anyone teasing you so much?”

“No, I am not.” He sounded sour, but she wasn't buying it.

“I do it with love,” she said lightly. Then she had to look away before he saw the sincerity in her eyes. She had to keep a tighter lid on that, especially after their last conversation on the subject of love interests. “Besides, someone occasionally wise told me that levity is the sign of a good working relationship.”

“'Occasionally'?”

“Yeah, you have your moments. Next time I have to climb a wall, though, maybe the three of you can stay on the ground like sensible people?”

“Where's the fun in that?” Bull called before Solas could answer.

“The fun in that, my darling Bull,” she retorted, “is that then I might not get knocked on my ass by _your_ ass.”

“Hey,” he drawled. “You like my ass.”

“Yeah, but not enough to want it in my personal space.”

“Your loss.”

She snorted and scanned the road in time to see a pack of wild Mabari approaching. She drew her bow and felt more than heard Solas's staff swing around as a barrier settled over her. She let fly as Bull gave a whoop and Varric threw a handful of caltrops in front of them. The Mabari were no match for the pair of them, and she felt safe enough just hanging back with Solas, who leaned on his staff next to her.

He didn't say anything, but she felt his eyes on her. She turned and met his stare. He was standing entirely too close. It appeared to be deliberately so, just to see if she said anything about _him_ being in her personal space. Before she could, he thumped the staff just once into the ground, sending out a ripple of lightning that hit all three dogs simultaneously. He didn't seem to care whether or not it hit their companions. She noted, however, that it didn't. Well...it didn't hit Varric.

“Show off.” She shook her head at him as he gave a sideways smile and watched the rest of the fight wind down. Jealousy? From an ancient Elvhen god? Color her surprised.

And highly entertained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This also happened in game. I went one way on the ledge of the house, the companions went the other and then did this hilarious sequence of bumping into each other until Bull knocked me down to the ground. Then they stood there and looked at me like *I* was in the wrong.
> 
> And then we ran into wild Mabari walking back to the scout camp.


	10. No Comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly has something she needs to tell Varric.

“Varric,” she said, stopping at his fire in Haven. He looked up at her and smiled a welcome.

“Well hello there, Herald. How's my peaches and cream today?”

“You're cute.”

Then his face fell as he took in her expression. “This isn't a social call, is it?”

Carly slumped to the ground, tucking her knees against her chest. “Nope. I have some bad news for you.”

“On top of the hole in the sky, demons running amok and this lovely weather?” He waved his arm around at the snow.

“Yeah, on top of all that. The Elder One that the Venatori follow? It's Corypheus.”

“Shit.” He sat down next to her, for once ignoring the dirt and slushy snow as if his legs had just been cut out from under him. “You're sure?”

“I am. I know why he wasn't dead the last time too.” She gave him a serious look. “Original darkspawn. He can hop bodies like an Archdemon.”

“We need a Warden then.”

“No, we don't, although we'll get one...sorta. We'll kill him, don't worry. It will all work out. Just thought I should tell you before you find out the hard way.”

“What do you mean?”

Carly looked around the town, seeing the bustle and training soldiers and the knots of mages trying to avoid Chantry frowns. She could see the town in her mind's eye, burning, people trapped in the little cottages, the night air split with a dragon's shriek. Red Templars and abominations, Venatori and red lyrium left on their bodies as loot. The screams of the dying, the anguish she'd feel when she couldn't save them all. The avalanche.

 _Cole, the only bright spot on that hellish night_.

“He's coming for me. Or well, he will be, once I've closed the Breach.”

“How much time will we have?”

“It will all be on the same day. I should start planning it soon. We have the mages, we're strong enough to do this already. Have been for a while. I've been...procrastinating.”

“How many make it?”

“Not enough. Never enough. It's not something I can change. It needs to happen. Both for the sake of the Inquisition and for everyone in it, who needs to see what we're up against.”

“Fuck.”

“Ayup.”

“I'm with you, Carly. I'll always stand with you.”

“I know, Varric. Thanks. I just...you needed to know. And I needed to tell someone other than Solas. He's got no clue about Corypheus, what he can do, what he's like. But you do. Besides, you probably want to warn Hawke about it too. If this was the game, we'd be needing her soon. Hell, we'll still need her. I just won't need to pump her for information on the wannabe god.”

“I'm not sure that's a comfort.”

“Nothing is, these days.”

They stayed at the fire, slumped together, a miserable pile of fears and hopes. At some point, he took her hand in his and just held it. They didn't need to say anything more.


	11. Armor of Many Kinds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bull's no dummy. Takes place just before the fall of Haven.

“That's an...interesting look for you, Boss,” Bull said, his eye lingering on her torso in the Avvar 'armor' as she stood in front of a polished sheet of bronze at the forge to see her reflection. She hadn't even noticed him sidling her way from the Chargers' camp.

“Tits out for the Breach!” she cried, laughing. “Honestly, I just wanted to see how it looked. I wouldn't dream of going to battle this way. Too much bouncing.”

“I know someone who'd like it,” he leered.

“Shush.”

He barked a laugh. “You really going to try and fool my other eye into thinking it's seeing things that aren't there?”

“Oh, I'm not denying it, I just don't need the whole town to hear it. Or him, for that matter.”

“What's going on there, then? Life's too short, go after him if you want him.” The canny look was back, the one that screamed he was a Qunari spy who knew how to find secrets. She figured as long as he thought he'd rooted out this one, the rest of hers would keep.

“It's not that simple, Bull. I wish it was sometimes. The Herald of Andraste can't be seen throwing herself at an elf who has half his brain in the Fade. Looks...suspicious.”

“Because he consorts with demons?”

“He doesn't _consort_ with demons, you big...Bull. Not everything in the Fade wants to kill us.”

“No, just the things that come out of it.”

“Well, that part's true enough.” She turned before the bronze mirror, chuckling at how silly she looked. Granted, it didn't look that comical when it was rushing at her with screams of bloody murder. The Avvar were a special kind of fierce. “Ugh, it's going to take me forever to get all this paint off.”

“Want some help?”

“Is that a genuine offer or do you just want a pretense to get me naked?”

He grinned at her, wide and charming. “You've only got eyes for him, don't think I haven't noticed.”

“Almost a shame, huh? I think we could have fun together.”

“You're not that kind of woman,” he stated, no more joking in his tone, although his expression stayed light.

She grinned back at him. “Yeah, you're right. That's okay, you'll find someone to have fun with, I'm sure.”

“What makes you think I haven't already?”

“I meant on a more _regular_ basis.”

“You say that like you know something I don't. That's unusual.”

“I bet,” she smirked. “Call it a hunch.” She gave herself a final look in the bronze and sighed. “All right, help me with the paint?”

“Sure thing, Boss. I promise I won't look.”

“I'm calling bullshit, Bull. But I won't hold it against you.”

“Aw, that's a shame.” He was still grinning as he waved a hand towards one of the tents in his camp. “Would you feel better if I said I was sorry you weren't that kind of woman?”

“I don't know. Maybe.” She ducked into the entrance he held open for her. It was his tent, she saw immediately. She gave him a sly look. “My my, such hospitality.”

“I've got a scraper in here, that's all.” He held it up so she could see and stood behind her to start peeling the layers of paint off her shoulders. She managed to get most of the paint on herself, leaving only a section dead center where she hadn't been able to reach. Bull paused in his work and stuck his head outside. She heard his bellow as if he was still right next to her. “Krem, get some hot water and a tub. The Boss'll need it.”

He came back and went to work on her again. By the time Krem arrived with a large wooden tub and a bucket of scalding hot water, her shoulders and back were mostly scraped. They both thanked him, and he just sighed at them like he was more than used to seeing Bull in this position and he ducked back out.

“Hold out your arms more,” Bull said, working the layers off there too.

“Ya know, Bull, I have the schematics for some of your armor too. I mean, Qunari.”

“Oh yeah? Anything with ropes?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Wear that for him, sometime. He'll like it.”

“How do you know?”

“Pfft, I know the quiet types.”

“Maybe I'd rather see _him_ in it.”

Bull paused, just for a moment. Then he went back to work. “Yeah, you would. Would take a lot of convincing, though. That type doesn't give up the control so easily.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I know. That's why fantasies are fantasies.”

Bull finished up her arms and moved around so he was in front of her. He handed her the scraper and stepped back. “Didn't say it wouldn't happen. You try hard enough, you'd have him on his knees in no time. Bet you could manage it without him even realizing what you'd done.”

“I don't want to break him,” she said, realizing that at some point the conversation had turned serious and they were no longer talking about just sex, casual or otherwise. It didn't bear pointing out that she knew things no one else did, but Bull was perceptive enough to guess there were things she was still hiding.

“No, you wouldn't. Bend him a little. He could use that.” He nodded his horned head at the scraper. “You can finish up from here. Wash the rest off. Water should be cool soon enough. Where's your clothes?”

“Back at the armory.” She caught Bull's arm before he could leave the tent. “Hey...thanks.”

The saucy, charming grin was back. “Any time, Boss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned lately that I love Iron Bull a lot?


	12. The Dread Wolf Guides You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now for something completely different - Solas POV after the fall of Haven.

Solas caught sight of Carly from the corner of his eye, her face determined as she cranked the trebuchet and loaded it. She had already told him it wouldn't matter, but going through the motions did. She unleashed the loaded siege engine, and when the first avalanche thundered into the valley, smothering most of the Venatori and Red Templar troops, everyone around them cheered.

Everyone but her. She was watching the sky, waiting for the next thing to show up. A dragon, she'd said. Corrupted and controlled by Corypheus.

It was a wonder she could look at him, sometimes, knowing what she knew.

He didn't have time to pursue that thought, as a scream pierced the night sky and the black and red shape loomed up and filled their vision. They fell back, out of the way of the sweeping wings and flames. He lost sight of her.

The Commander called the retreat, and he was forced to go, frantic arms pulling him away from the site where Carly had fallen and been cut off from her escape by the fire. This was what she'd meant when she asked him not to disappear, he realized. He could tell she was alive, he could feel her fear still even with this distance between them. Normally he had to be much closer in order to pick up on her thoughts. Her terror must be immense to broadcast so far and he did not want to leave.

He dropped back slowly through the soldiers rushing out of Haven's remains and into the mountains. He tracked their passage, fixing the point in his mind. She needed him to stay. She had told him she knew she would survive this. He had to trust in this. This fragile hope held in a fragile being he wasn't even sure was real. Solas wasn't a creature of faith. And yet...

He sheltered himself in the trees and waited. He couldn't feel her mind anymore. A feeling like worry crept into him, a slow insidious emotion that he both detested and refused. And yet...

It would not leave him.

How often had he studied this woman? In her quiet moments of reflection where she drew so much other-worldliness around herself it was like she was a spirit. In battle, where she appeared as an avenging virago, leaping to the defense of her comrades, cutting down her foes with nary a qualm. In sleep, where she was childlike and innocent, her cares wiped clean from her face and the mask of his own demonic form stared back at him from her forehead. Her smiles were freely given to all, her diplomacy a thing of grace and grit. Her compassion was unparalleled, even for him. Even knowing what he intended. She could easily have forsaken any chance of alliance between them, but she fought for it instead. Tooth and nail, she fought for it. Bullied him into rethinking his own decisions with brutal accuracy.

The rumble could be felt under his feet before he heard it. The wave of ice and snow rushed at him across the valley, burying the town and only coming to a stop some measure away from him as he waited. The cold did not bother him. But the avalanche covered over the retreat of the Inquisition forces. She would not know where they'd gone when she emerged from the scene, as he knew she must.

She must.

He felt the flare of the Anchor like it was in his own skin. Familiar and not. She was alive. She was approaching, battered and exhausted, her mind nearly snapped from the tension and terror. Lost in the snow. A pack of wolves was already advancing on the ruins, hungry and lean and looking for easy prey. He was not it, and his self defense against them made them howl. He felt her then, close enough to touch her mind, to hear her thoughts. They were a muddled wash of too many clashing things to pick out anything solid.

“Subtle, Solas,” she said wryly when she saw him, a shade of her usual sarcastic self. He smirked at her, fell in step beside her. The irony was not lost on him that the Dread Wolf was guiding this mortal from peril towards safety. It was not exactly what he was known for.

He had to admit it to himself, if to no one else. He cared for her. Far more than he should, more than was wise. More than he deserved to indulge. He did not care in that moment, when her face was full of pain and her breaths caught in lungs nearly punctured by wounds she'd gotten from fighting his battles for him. He would lay down his life to never see that pain on her again. The realization should have been shocking, but it felt old, as if he'd already made room for it in his skin.

“You're awful cute sometimes,” she whispered, her face relaxing as he took her pain and healed it. He should resist, he knew he should. He did not.

“Only sometimes, lethallan?”

“Yeah, the rest of the time you're just grim and fatalistic. Still hot, though.”

She slipped sideways, falling, fainting. He caught her. He would always catch her.


	13. My Heart Is My Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twist is angsty right now, so here's a snippet of happier times.

She scaled the walls. Walked across rooftops, sliding on the tiles, catching herself at the last second to the sound of astonished gasps from below, although once it was to the tune of Bull's laughter.

She raced along the sturdy outer wall, feet sure on the stones, eyes seeing the blur of the Frostbacks as she ran. She tumbled down the broken wall and clambered up the other side, racing still as if chased.

She leaned over the railing in the rotunda's now empty third floor – her decision to put Leliana and her ravens in an empty guard tower one of her better ones. She watched the researchers finish up their day, saw Dorian stacking books back on shelves. And all the way down, she saw Solas sitting at his worktable, reading. If she thought she could get away with it, she'd leap. But she knew in real life she'd only break both legs and probably the table.

She looked at the faded paintings in the lower recesses of the Great Hall, the vast space echoing with her clearing her throat, with each scuff of her feet in the undisturbed dust of ages. She swept the cobwebs out of her way in the tiny hidden library and told no one it was there.

She trailed her fingers along the walls of the Undercroft, seeing if they felt any different under her hands than they looked. Burned, melted, broken. The rush of water under her feet that made Dagna nervous, although she tried to hide it behind a giggle.

Carly stood at the edge and looked down into the chasm below Skyhold, open to the air. And she wondered. Was it here?

She sat in the garden and listened to Mother Giselle hum under her breath as she weeded in the herb garden.

She crept through the eaves under the roof of the Herald's Rest, sharing a secret smile with Cole.

She went down into the tavern proper and shared a tankard and a meal with the Chargers, exchanging terrible puns with Bull and Krem until they were all laughing hard enough to make their sides ache.

And in the quiet of night, she stole down from her huge empty chamber and looked at Solas's murals while the castle slept. She sat cross legged on the floor and stared at the expanse of plaster and pigment, the soft blue glow from one set of lights balanced with the candle still burning on the worktable, creating deep shadows that wavered on the walls.

And he found her there, restless from his own sleepless night. He hadn't slept well in weeks, she knew. He mourned still for Wisdom, and worried for things over which he had little control, just as Carly did. He sat in his chair and watched her.

“Are you happy here, lethallan?”

“I am,” she said, deeply satisfied to be in this place where so much of her heart belonged. She canted her head sideways and smiled at him. So much of it belonged to him too, but she couldn't tell him that. Not yet. “This is home.”

He smiled back at her, quiet and calm and himself with no one else to see. The smile held cunning and a sense of peace and something else she couldn't read, and that was all right with her. It was just right. She looked back at the mural and her smile shifted to a smirk.

“So, how many hints you think it will take before anyone else figures it out?”

He looked at the same wolves she was grinning at and huffed. “Do they ever?”

“Nah. People usually only see what they want to.”

“You see more than most.”

She stood up, preparing to leave. “I see what I want, too. It just so happens that what I want to see is the truth, Fen'Harel.”

He smiled again, comfortable with her knowledge. “I value that about you.”

She redirected her feet to his side and leaned over and kissed the top of his head, chaste and comforting. He jolted under it, his face quizzical. She offered him a final simple smile and stepped back.

“Dareth shiral.”

“Dareth shiral, Carly.”


	14. No Decision At All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Chargers or the Qun? Pfft.

The rain that routinely fell on the Storm Coast lashed their faces as they stood on the cliff's edge, watching the Venatori creep ever closer to the Chargers. Bull's face was impassive. Carly knew he would leave the decision to her.

“You need to do what's right, Hissrad, for the alliance. And the Qun,” Gatt said.

“Call them back,” Carly murmured. There was a subtle change in Bull as he blew a retreat. Something that settled on his frame. She knew what it was. Relief...and grief. It was out of his hands now.

When they were back at Skyhold, and Gatt had been dismissed with as much neutrality as she could manage, she and Bull could finally talk about it alone. “You didn't have to do it.”

“I know,” she said. “But Bull, they're your company. Your family. And I love them all too. Call it selfish if you want, but there was never a decision to make there. The Qun has its place, but that place is not here. I was never going to choose an unknown over those I care about.”

“You knew, didn't you? You knew it was going to come down to a decision.” His eye was piercing, and she kept her face as blank as possible. Bull had always guessed something wasn't right about her history. As yet, she didn't know if Dorian had told him the truth. It wasn't important right now.

“It was always a possibility. Emotion over duty always is. It was my call, I made it.”

“And I let you.”

“Yes, you did. We both have to live with it.”

“You don't seem upset by that.”

She gave him a grin. “Nope. Not at all.”

“I'm Tal-Vashoth,” he sighed. “Do you know what that means?”

“Bull, you've been living as a Tal-Vashoth for years. Are you a mindless, savage beast who knows nothing other than killing?”

He looked mulish. “No.”

“Listen to me, and listen good. You are the Iron Bull, a valued member of the Inquisition and the leader of Bull's Chargers. You are my friend, and I trust you with my life. Don't let a label define you. You got that?”

“Yes, Boss.”

She saw Krem approaching and smiled at him. “How are the Chargers?”

“No injuries to worry about. Chief's even breaking open a cask of Chassind sackmead for the Chargers tonight.”

“Dammit, Krem, that's the kind of thing you _don't_ have to mention to the Inquisitor.” The pair of them squared off, back to their usual training routine. Carly laughed.

“Is that because you don't want to share it, Bull? I'm hurt, really. This is my hurt face.”

Krem laughed at Bull's look of chagrin and they shared a grin between them. “Come join us then, Your Worship. You know where to find us.”

Carly felt a piece of her click into place. A good piece that made everything she'd done worthwhile. “I will, Krem. Now, hit him hard. He needs it.”

Krem's gaze got crafty. “You could help. Show'im what I've been teaching you.”

Carly picked up a training sword, too heavy for her arm but priceless for the shock on Bull's face when he realized they'd ganged up on him. “You're on. Ready Bull?”

Rue on Bull was always entertaining and she grinned at him. He shook his head and grinned back. “All right, you two. Give me your worst.”


	15. The Memory of Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A conversation at a veilfire torch in the middle of nowhere. Takes place after the fall of Haven.

The townsfolk moved out of the cave once they determined they were safe enough. There would be no pursuit from Corypheus, at least for now. Carly snorted to herself, seeing the tents spread out. At least she hadn't needed to endure any Andrastian singalongs with Mother Giselle. But the rest of that scene didn't play out either, and for that she was slightly disappointed. She always enjoyed watching Solas drop his humble act, even for a moment, in the game.

Oh, who was she kidding? She just liked to watch him walk.

She wandered away from the camp and found the veilfire torch alone by itself in a clearing. She traced her fingers over it, touching the frigid metal and wondering how it even came to be here. A relic of a bygone era? A waypoint? Just random?

“This has always been a route to Tarasyl'an Tel'as,” Solas said, his feet barely making any noise on the snow. That part was accurate at least.

She turned to him, and watched him walk. She smiled, both at him and at herself. “How far away can you dip?”

“I must be within a certain distance,” he said with a nod to acknowledge that he had in fact skimmed her mind. “The closer I am, the clearer your thoughts are.”

“I still wish I knew how you do it.”

“As do I. It is an odd connection to have with someone who is neither mage or from this world. Perhaps it is because of that fact that I can do it.” He pointed to the torch. “Would you like to see it?”

She nodded and stepped back enough to give him space. She watched his fingers curl and flourish, conjuring the veilfire. In its glow she could see him smirk. “Why is it sometimes blue and sometimes green?”

“The age of the memory. This place is very old. Therefore, the memory of the flames that once burned here is old.”

 _As old as the Veil_ , she thought, _if not older_.

He hummed a sound that might have been agreement.

“You know, here is where we would normally talk about the orb, and how it's elven.” She slanted a look at him. “Although you don't go so far as to say it's yours.”

“But we do not have need to do that.”

“No, we don't.”

“You seem disappointed that we are not. Why?”

She grinned. “It's a purely aesthetic thing.” _Graceful steps, each one in front of the other like a wolf, back straight, pride rolling in waves. The first acknowledgment of kinship_.

“I see,” he said.

“We would talk about Skyhold too. But, we don't need to do that either.”

“And yet, you came out here in the dark to this spot.”

She watched the veilfire stay steady even with the wind around them. Instead of answering him, she offered a question of her own. “Would it burn me?”

“It is not real flame, only the memory of it. It does not hold heat.”

She held to her hand as close as she dared and when she felt nothing, she plunged her fingers into the flames. There was no sensation, other than a tingle of the Veil. She rolled her hand back and forth in it, seeing if she could manipulate it in any way. When she looked at him, he was watching her with his head cocked to the side, that furrowed brow of pondering what she was becoming plain. She beamed at him, even if he had no idea why.

“Thank you, Solas.”

“For what?”

“For taking us there. For indulging my weird otherworld things. For being you.”

He smirked. “I could hardly be someone else.”

She snorted. “That skirts _awful_ close to being a lie, Fen'Harel.”

He stepped closer to her, close enough to touch. His face was peaceful as she called him by a name normally reviled. It was a part of himself that she knew was there, and had accepted without conflict. His hand slipped around hers in the veilfire, lacing their fingers together. He had to know her breath stopped dead in her lungs, since he chuckled. He drew out their joined hands, keeping a wisp of the flame in her palm by magic. “Malicious compliance, lethallan.”

“Smooth,” she teased. The flame extinguished, as did the torch, plunging them back into starlight.

He was smiling. He dropped a kiss onto her fingers laced with his. “As to the rest, I appreciate your curiosity regarding this world that is not your own. As I appreciate your respect for its mysteries. But now, I think you need more rest. It is a long journey, and all of it on foot.”

He kept her hand in his as they went back to camp, ostensibly to help her keep her footing in the snow, but she wasn't buying it. Not for a second.


	16. Essential Self

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do we see ourselves in dreams? Does it match our waking hours? Solas POV. Takes place before Champion At Rest in Twist.

He had hoped to walk the Fade in his other form tonight, but before he could shift into that ephemeral and now hidden part of himself, he saw a figure in the place where their waking camp stood. He did not identify the figure at first. It was a woman, he could see, but not one he immediately recognized. She stood tall, her hair unbound and falling in waves across her back, soft round features bearing no markings. She turned fully and saw him and her eyes lit up.

“Solas! It's so lovely here. I mean it's still lovely on the other side too, but...”

“Carly?” he asked, astonished that he had not known her.

“Who else would it be?”

“Is this what you look like then, in your own world?”

He watched her face change as she realized. Without the distinctive – and rather awkward for her, he surmised – vallaslin, her face took on a new aspect. He noticed then that her ears were round and small, tucked close to her head. She ran her own hand over them, probably guessing that's what he was looking at. He had not noticed these details before, on their previous interaction in the Fade. Granted, it had been a starlit night, and they spent more time looking at the sky than each other.

Her eyes turned stricken with an expression that he could not parse. He noticed that regardless of the differences in her dreaming state, her eyes were the same. A green so clear and bright it rivaled the memory of the trees around them. He was not sure how he felt about seeing this proof of her other-worldliness. He had been drawn to her for some time now, had in fact encouraged her friendly flirting and relaxed manner around him. He enjoyed discussing things with her that he could not tell others for fear of giving himself away. As always, however, the reminder that she was also not what she appeared was startling.

“What's wrong?” she asked, picking up on his distraction.

He made an effort to clear it, to calm his mental state before they drew undue attention from the resident spirits. “It is nothing.”

“It's because I'm human, isn't it?”

“In this place, you are.”

“It's who I am under my skin, Solas,” she said softly, but firmly. Something in her expression was a challenge. Either to herself or to him, he wasn't sure. And either way, it pained her, he could see. He thought perhaps she feared losing her _self_ to this world that was not her own. He determined that he would not add to that pain, since he knew it well.

“Walk with me, lethallan,” he said, taking her arm. _Kin_ , he called her. No matter what else they were, their motives made them kindred. Her fingers squeezed on him before coming to rest carefully at his elbow. He led them away from the campsite, into the trees that were smaller and fewer than in the waking world. Between them he saw memories, faces in the spirits. Some were mournful, many were angry. He exerted some power over the environment, much the way Cole could do, and soothed the spirits until they faded back into the shade of the forest.

“This place is sacred to you, isn't it?” she asked after a while.

“It is.”

“What was it like...then?”

“Peaceful. Quiet. A place of reflection and introspection. Few who came here did so out a need to remember the departed so much as a need to determine whether or not they wished to join them.”

“To slumber at the foot of the mother,” she whispered, a ripple of sound that impinged on the surroundings with the weight of sorrow mixed with envy, if he was guessing correctly.

“An interesting way to put that,” he said aloud.

“Well, that's the idea, right? Mythal, the All-Mother, whose sign is a tree. Immortal Elvhen, choosing to lay down the burden of life to disappear into uthenera, to sleep forever with their kin and brethren. Half forgotten by the Dalish to mean that the dead should be buried under a tree.” She looked around them at the strong trunks and branches, the canopy of leaves that hid even a glimpse of the sky. “That's why they're called the Emerald Graves, right? Thousands of years of elves buried here.”

“How does one not of this world gain so much wisdom of it?”

“The internet,” she replied with a smirk. Present in his mind, as if he was watching through her eyes, he saw what he'd come to know was a computer, the screen showing a page written in unfamiliar script that resolved to be legible the longer he looked at it, detailed with images of this very place. Overlaid onto this thought was another, a moving one where people spoke of things known to very few, theories and ideas and descriptions. He stumbled when his own image came onto the screen in her thoughts, his name written boldly for anyone to see.

She tugged on his arm, drawing his attention away from the thoughts inside her head to the expression on her face. Eyebrow raised, face set somewhere between a smile and a frown. “You're doing it again.”

“Forgive me, lethallan.”

“Nah, I don't mind. It's a hell of a lot easier than trying to explain in words. I just wish I knew _how_ you were doing it.”

“And I, as well. It seems I cannot escape it, nor you control it.” A snatch of music ran through his head. It was not a tune he had ever heard before, the rhythm of it fast and thrumming.

“Sure I can,” she said with a laugh. “Just takes some mental elbow grease.” She clung tighter to him, and he had no urge to release her. Now _that_ was more familiar, if troubling. “Tell me more?”

“Certainly.”


	17. What a Mess!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly and her magic makers, sometime after the fall of Haven.
> 
> Warning for some mild animal related carnage.

She didn't usually bring just mages with her anywhere. It wasn't a balanced party when one never knew what they would come across. But at this point – with the Breach closed for now and plans in place for heading to the Hissing Waste – she figured she would be all right with them. She had an experiment she wanted to try. Solas gave her a long suffering sigh and mildly chastising look as he picked up the thought. She grinned and shrugged at him, not feeling the need to explain out loud.

Dorian wielded fire. Vivienne wielded ice. Solas wielded electricity. She wanted to see what they did in combination with each other.

They rode out from the crossroads outside of Redcliffe and wandered through the low rolling hills of the Hinterlands, ostensibly looking for the final shard pieces and any leftover bandits. Or bears. Bears were more likely.

And she was right on that score.

She stood back, only shooting occasionally behind the trio of mages to keep the bear from attacking them as they each hit the growling beast with all they had. She almost felt sorry for it. Dorian set its fur aflame, Vivienne froze it solid and Solas...

Well, with a flourish and a smirk, he channeled enough storm energy into his strike that the pillar of frost the bear had become _exploded_ in a half fiery, half icy heap.

“Wow,” she said with a gasping laugh, looking over the destruction. There wasn't even a scrap of hide worth salvaging to make into leather. Even the claws were cracked from the onslaught. Half the meat was cooked, the other half was rapidly melting into goo from where it had been frozen and then blasted with shock. The results were certainly...effective. And gross, if she was going to be honest. “That was...”

“A suitable demonstration of what three mages can do together?” Vivienne finished for her, a sardonic look on her face.

“Yeah...” Carly breathed, stepping carefully among the still glowing sigils on the ground.

“Was that the idea?” Dorian asked, seeming to catch up to her thought process. “Carly, we could have done something similar back at Skyhold without having to dress up for the occasion.”

“You love dressing up for the occasion,” she teased.

“Fair point.”

Vivienne sniffed delicately, Solas snorted and tried to hide it and Dorian just shook his head. Carly grinned at them, delighted. “You guys are amazing. And maybe a tiny bit terrifying.”

“As mages should be, my dear,” Vivienne said before Solas could. It seemed that even though she and Dorian loved to poke rather barbed fun at Solas for being _humble_ , in this they were in agreement.

“Right,” Carly said, still looking over the breathtaking mess. “That's that. C'mon, we've got stuff to find.” Dorian and Vivienne stalked off, as they were wont to do when together, bickering pleasantly about everything. Solas waited for Carly, amusement all over his face.

“Worth it?” he asked.

“I think so? That was...more than I was expecting.”

He chuckled under his breath and leaned on his staff. “I might have exaggerated.”

She snorted at him. “Show off.”


	18. The Western Approach Can Fall In a Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly has to deal with a rift on her own after falling down a hill. Takes place before the assault on Adamant.

She supposed she really couldn't blame any of the others for not keeping up, since her slide through the sand to the rift had been...precipitous. As soon as her feet landed and she stood up, two rage demons and a couple of lesser terrors turned in unison, closing in on her. The rift crackled and it echoed in her palm as the Anchor sparked painfully. Carly took a breath, loaded her bow and tossed a handful of caltrops to the sand, carefully watching each demon's approach without shooting. This would take exquisite timing.

The nearest rage demon had just lifted its fiery arms to strike at her when she launched herself backwards in a flip, releasing a flurry of arrows at once. The mass of demons were caught in her trap and were now also on fire from her arrows. Well, except the rages. They just looked more frustrated. She dropped stealth over herself and ignored the sting of the one that had landed a swipe on her as she'd jumped. She ran clumsily to the far side of the tear in the Veil, where they couldn't see her, and held up the Anchor to push back the Fade. With luck she would have time to stun the remaining demons before they could attack. She shook out her foot while she did; her landing had been awkward and turned her ankle. She could feel it swelling inside her boot.

Hopefully, Solas, Varric and Blackwall would catch up soon.

With a small pop, the rift shrank and the Fade sucked in the weaker demons, taking them out of play. One rage demon remained and she hit it with an explosive arrow, dissipating its essence into the sand. She would have only a moment's respite as new ones attempted to come through. She looked around to see if her companions were there yet, but they were still figuring out how to safely come down the sand dune.

This rift was in the open, so she didn't dare shout at them to just slide down like she had. There was no sense drawing attention from the hyenas or White Claw raiders, both of which had been prowling the dune above. The rift surged and new demons appeared. A trio of shades and a pride demon, who roared at her before cackling when it saw she was alone.

From where she stood, she saw Solas gesture broadly from the ridge of the dune and felt a barrier settle on her. _Dammit, Fen'Harel, get your ancient ass down here, I don't care how_ , she thought, hoping he was close enough to pick up her thoughts if he was close enough to cast on her. She resolutely ignored the pride demon's taunting and pushed back the rift with the Anchor, weakening the shades and stunning the tall spiky demon before it could form its whip.

Then she pumped it full of poison arrows and tossed a jar of bees at its feet. Solas was sliding down the side of the dune, dignity abandoned finally. The pride demon turned at his shout – something in Elvish that she was too far away to catch – and she took the opportunity to keep shooting it until the rift cycled again and she could close it. The demon blundered its way towards Solas, who smacked it with a column of ice and Carly peppered its back with more shots. It fell to a knee and she held up the Anchor again, letting the closing of the rift draw the demon back into the Fade.

The rift popped out of existence and she let herself just slump into the sand, marking the spot where a pile of Fade goop glistened. _Yay, slimy loot_. Solas rushed across the now empty space and took a look at her arm where her armor was scorched.

“Are you all right?”

“More or less.”

“You were limping.”

“Turned my ankle on the landing of that flip. Have I mentioned recently that I hate it here? This whole running around the desert thing can fall right into the Abyssal Rift.”

He tugged off her boot as he chuckled. It hurt like hell since the boot came to her knees and the long slide of leather across her injured ankle just kept twisting it further. Then he cradled the joint in his hands, and she felt cool healing pass through the tendons and bones. She released a sigh of relief.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Not your fault I fell tail over teakettle into a nest of demons.” They both ignored the fact that ultimately yes, as a matter of fact, it _was_ his fault there were any nests of demons to fall into. _No use crying over split milk_.

“We should not have hesitated to follow.” He shook his head and she saw that he was covered in a sheen of sweat and dusty sand particles. Keeper's robes must be a real bitch in this heat and she spared a thought that Blackwall in his full armor must be roasting. Not to mention they'd all been getting regularly irritated by the constant grit. No wonder they hadn't just blindly followed her down the dune. Varric's boots were probably already full of sand and she'd never hear the end of it, bringing a dwarf to a desert. Solas continued, “But you did quite well on your own.”

She wiggled her fingers around the Anchor. “Yeah, I'm pretty handy.”

A raised eyebrow and pursed lips was his response as he let go of her ankle and shook out her boot so she could pull it back on. She smirked at him. Once she had the boot back in place, he helped her stand and she had just finished poking through the loot piles the demons left behind when the others finally reached them.

“There's not many people I would wade through sand in plate armor for,” Blackwall said by way of greeting. “Especially when you can apparently do it all yourself anyhow.”

She glanced up at the warrior and grinned. “We'll head back to camp. You can get out of that plate and maybe we'll catch a breeze. I'm pretty sure Scout Harding sent on a shipment of melons from the trade point.”

“Humph,” he said.

“Peaches...you're a menace,” was Varric's contribution to the conversation. “I'm never gonna get all this sand out of Bianca. Why do I even agree to come with you?”

“Because I'm cute.”

Solas snorted. He caught her hand and examined the Anchor, making sure it was all right and that it didn't hurt. He dropped a single kiss into her palm before they began their hike back to the nearest Inquisition outpost. The trio of companions continued to make complaints to each other about the state of the sand, the heat and the _bloody damn critters_ – that from Blackwall – and Carly just listened with a smile.

Soon enough they'd catch up to Hawke and Stroud and deal with Erimond and his nonsense. Soon enough Blackwall would buckle under the strain of his lies, and she knew she had to let him in order to make him a better person. Soon enough they would march on Adamant Fortress and hopefully not die. Soon enough Solas would have to decide how much of his own cover he was going to keep. But for now they were just a group of good-natured complainers the way only friends could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to my wonderful beta Iron_Angel for the phrase 'tail over teakettle'.


	19. Forgive Us Our Trespasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall's secret is out. Carly is in no position to judge.

Carly leaned her wrists through the bars and stared at Blackwall. Thom. He didn't look back at her. She supposed she could understand why. To a man like him, honor was everything. And now it was gone. The worst part was he didn't even know she'd been waiting for it. He didn't know how torn she was about it. How could she judge when she was hiding her true self too?

“Where do we go from here?” he asked eventually, eyes on the floor.

“Do you want to live?”

“I...don't know.”

“I want you to live.”

He looked at her then. “Why?”

“Because there are quite a few people in the world who have made terrible mistakes. Some of them try to fix them by making all new ones. Some of them just give up. Some rare few own up and face them, like you did. I can't in good conscience punish you for finally facing the truth, no matter how belatedly. I know it won't be popular. I know people will talk behind my back that I'm corrupt and I run a corrupt institution for extraditing you back here using Inquisition means. But killing you now wouldn't change the past. It would only cost me a warrior and a friend.”

A tear slipped into his beard as he looked at her. She broke his gaze to stare at her hands. “I've killed. Or had others kill in my name. Bad people, good people. Innocents who just didn't get out of the way fast enough or were caught up in things not so innocent without their knowledge. Doesn't matter at the end of the day, does it? Their blood is on me. What difference does it make if the cause is somehow righteous?” She sighed. “Orlais was in civil unrest for a long time, and eventually in all out war. Plots and plans were in motion long before the Inquisition stepped in and finished it. You were doing what you had been paid to do. It was a job, one that you didn't know would be so horrible until it was over. I don't have to like it, and I certainly won't praise it. But that's how mercs work. No different than Bull.”

He met the cold smirk that had fallen on her face with a look like revelation before it fell into a frown. “The Iron Bull would not have run from the consequences.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I can't make a comparison between a Ben-Hassrath born to the Qun and an imperfect human soldier who made a decision in a war torn country. You inspired the same kind of loyalty in your men that he does, though. There must be a reason for that to happen. And you want to make amends for your wrongs. I don't see an irredeemable man before me. I don't see a man willing to give up entirely.”

“Hence why you want me to live.”

“Yeah.”

“What are my options?”

“Join the Grey Wardens as Thom Rainier, or stay in the Inquisition.”

“You would let me stay? You would still trust me with your life?”

“I trust Bull with it. None of us is perfect. All we can do is keep trying to get it right.”

“If you'll still have me, I'll stay with the Inquisition.” He stood up and crossed to the bars separating them. “You're a strange one, your Worship. I think anyone else would have snuffed me out like a candle.”

“I get that a lot.”

“How do you know I'm worth it?”

“Because at some point, you stopped _pretending_ to be a good man and actually became one. This world is dark enough without taking out one of its lights.” He huffed, not quite a laugh, but he didn't argue. She gave a decisive nod, time to wrap it up and make her judgment public. “I make no promises on how the others will react. And I expect honesty from here on out,” she swallowed hard against her own hypocrisy. “But you can stay.”

He held out his hand. She took it in her own, returning his grip. “Thank you.”


	20. You Wanna Fight About It?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solas disapproves. Carly has no patience for nonsense.

Solas paced back and forth in the rotunda, frowning hard and practically stomping his feet with each step. It reminded Carly of Cassandra when she was in a tizzy. She sat quietly on the sofa and waited it out. She had no doubts that she knew what was on his mind. It didn't take long for it to come out.

“You forgave him!” he spat.

“I did,” she replied calmly. His frown only deepened. She met it head on with a mild look. “Did you think I wouldn't? I forgave you too. And pretty much for the same reason. I already knew.”

That brought him up short. He automatically cast a quick glance upwards to the library. The torches were dark and the second floor was empty. It was the end of what had been a very long day and they were alone. She'd purposely put off this conversation for just that reason. “You should not have,” he finally whispered. “I do not deserve it any more than he does.”

“Why?”

“Oh for...seriously?”

“Solas...'Fen'Harel' is no more who you are than 'Thom Rainier' is who he is anymore. You've both done terrible things. Of the two of you, you're the one still keeping those things a secret.” She stared at him, heart in her throat, knowing that look in his eye meant cold disapproval. She tilted her head at him, a warning of her own not to push this.

“You are too forgiving.”

“Yeah, that's what he said too, in not so many words. But you know what? If I'd left him there, he would have been executed. If I'd sent him to become a Warden in truth, he'd still die. What was I supposed to do, let him rot in jail? He's a good man, an excellent fighter and he's my friend. Aren't I allowed to be self-serving about that sometimes?”

“Your duty to the greater good...”

She shot off the sofa and got in his face, her ire sparked into a bonfire. “Don't you talk to me about duty like some self righteous _ass_ who hasn't benefited greatly by my forbearance. Or the greater good, for that matter. Every single fucking day I make decisions that end people's lives. Every single day. And all to clean up what is, in all reality, _your_ mess. That's my greater good, Solas. You want to have another go round about remaking the world to fix your mistakes? You want to give me _even one_ blessed excuse for your own behavior? You don't get to throw duty in my face like a wet rag. Not you. I wouldn't even _be_ here if it wasn't for you.”

“It's not the same,” he exclaimed, letting his voice rise. “What I did was meant to save lives. I did not do it out of a selfish sense of self preservation because I could not face the consequences of my actions.”

“So the several millennia long nap had nothing to do with running away?” she asked sarcastically.

His eyes flashed in the low light, real anger bleeding through. “You go too far.”

“Looks more like I hit a nerve. Ma fen, I love you, and I would do almost anything for you. But I am under no illusion that you don't carry a demon under your skin. I know full well that you can be hot-headed and foolish. Prideful. Why the ever loving hell do you think I wanted to stop you so badly? You're a good man too given half a chance, just as he will be. Is it really so hard to fathom why I would extend that opportunity to him as I did to you?”

He let out a long breath and his temper seeped away like grains of sand. He stood at his worktable and hung his head. “No, it is not. Vhenan...” He held out his hand, inviting her to take it. She did, letting him pull her close. He rested his chin on top of her head. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, I forgive you. You probably – hopefully – didn't mean to be a hypocrite.”

He huffed a laugh into her hair at her teasing tone. “I will never live it down, will I?”

She tipped up her head to smirk at him. “Meh, maybe in a few hundred years. So you two have more in common than you knew. I know it's a shock, and it will take getting used to. All I'm asking is to give him a chance. You took one on me, after all.”

He kissed her forehead and nodded. “So I did.”

“Ar lath ma,” she whispered against his chest.

He sighed again and wrapped her in his arms, holding her tight. “Ar lath ma, vhenan.”

“Can we go to bed now? I'm exhausted.”

“Yes.”


	21. For the Spirit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cole needs help. Carly is determined that he gets it on his own terms.

Carly stood with Cole in the short corridor between the Great Hall and the rotunda. She had the amulet in her hand, carrying it for him since it wasn't charged. In front of them, Varric and Solas were having another go round.

“We cannot change our natures by wishing, Child of the Stone.”

“You don't think?” Varric rejoined. Solas's eyes met hers and for a moment her heart tripped. It was unnerving how many things stayed the same as the game. The look on his face changed as he caught her thoughts. An impression, most likely, of how she felt playing this part fictionally and knowing that he wished he _could_ change his own nature. Relief that here in this life, he didn't have to choose in order to be understood by her. She leveled her gaze at the two of them.

“Look, I know how this plays out already. And because of that, so does Cole. It's his decision, regardless of how either of you feel about it.” Solas side stepped smugly, hands behind his back. _I see you, ma fen. This isn't a pissing contest_. He raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing. “Before we do anything, Cole needs to decide how this will go.”

“I don't matter,” he wailed. “I just don't want to hurt anyone.”

“Cole, this is _your_ life we're talking about,” she snapped, exasperated. “I want you _safe_ , sweetie. One way or the other. We need to find the Templar. The amulet won't work until we do, and if you decide you want to kill him, you won't need it anyway.”

“He wants to be human,” Varric said vehemently. “That's why he came to us. So he could be a person.”

Carly rounded on her best friend, glaring. “He's already a person, Varric Tethras. We don't get to decide for him how he does that.”

“Peaches...”

She let her glare settle into something closer to anger. “His call. Not ours.”

“The pain,” Cole said, interrupting them before it turned into a fight, “it's there.”

He pointed and Carly nodded. “We'll find the Templar in Redcliffe. Cole, you still want us to go with you?”

“Yes.”

“Then let's get on it.”

She walked away before anyone could test her temper further. She'd already talked with her spirit boy about the events that led to his 'death'. As soon as he'd mentioned wanting to be bound so he couldn't end up like the poor souls at Adamant, she'd had Josie contact the Rivaini seers for the amulet. Now they rode towards Redcliffe, and soon enough it would be settled.

Cole didn't attempt to attack the man when they found him, following through on the cues Carly had already given him. She ignored most of Solas and Varric's argument on what made a spirit different than a human; she'd heard it all before. But it was escalating and needed to be stopped before Cole got too distressed.

“You two are doing it again,” she snapped. “Sweetie, what do you want to do?”

“I want to be...me.”

“A spirit.”

“Yes.”

“Solas, you're up.” She watched her lover and Cole follow as the former Templar ran off. Varric was frowning at her.

“You're awfully invested in this Peaches.”

“His destiny is not a game mechanic,” she said softly. “This is real, a real decision. He needed to make it on his own without any of us interfering.” She sighed and turned to her friend. “I know you think he'd be better off fully human, but he'd lose so much of himself that way.”

“And this is better? A half life where he'll never grow beyond his limitations?”

“He's the embodiment of an emotion, Varric. He would lose that to grow into something else. It's selfish of us to want him to be something he's not in the ultimately misguided thought that he'd be better off for it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I've played it both ways. Human Cole would grow, that's true. But he still wouldn't be fully at home in his skin. And he wouldn't be able to help the same way he can now. He'll always be different, no matter what.” She sighed as she looked down at him. “This is who he is, a spirit of compassion. Able to pass back and forth through the Veil as easily as we'd walk through a door. He'll be happier this way.”

“But alone.”

“He's not alone. He's got us. And we have him.”

Something shrewd settled into his eyes. “This isn't about Cole at all. This is about Solas. Why?”

“I...can't tell you that yet.”

“Spoilers?”

“Yes.” She put a hand on her friend's shoulder. “Trust me? I'm doing my best.”

“All right, Peaches. You win. If it's best for the Kid, then it's what we'll do.”

“Thank you.”


	22. Tactical Gymnastics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly is specializing in Assassin.
> 
> Special thanks to Ranaspel for the idea for this snippet!

Carly balanced on her hands and lifted, first one leg then the other, into a steady vertical plane. Heir's eyes were on her the whole time, standing a safe distance away in case she began to wobble and fall. Carly took a slow, measured breath and let her hips tip over her spine, controlling the motion of her legs until her feet touched the ground and she was bent in a spiral. This training session had gathered a crowd, and they collectively held their breath to keep quiet so they weren't a distraction to their Inquisitor.

“Good,” Heir said. “You have already studied this? You have passable flexibility and muscle control.”

Carly rolled out from the position and got to her feet again. “Some. Mostly so I can backflip on cue.”

“Let me see.”

She sprang, unleashing the coiled the strength in her thighs and abdomen. She lifted off the ground in a surge, flipping neatly end over end and landing on her feet again some distance away. She finished the move with well poised arms as if she had her bow in hand from muscle memory alone.

“It is a battle tactic, no?” Heir asked, having watched the entire flip, including the phantom positioning of her weapon.

“Right,” Carly replied, not even out of breath. “I have a specialty arrow that splits into segments once loosed, and combined with the flip, it makes a pretty spectacular escape from being overrun.” She saw Solas from the corner of her eye, joining the small crowd. She gave him a smile and beckoned him over. “It works best with the team. I can leap right over his head while he's casting. I cause a distraction, he takes advantage. We both end up in better position tactically.”

“Show me,” Heir directed.

Solas raised an eyebrow at such a commanding tone but Carly settled into her battle ready stance. He didn't have a staff with him, but she saw him drop into his own starting move too, just to her side. She moved in front of him, and with the trust they'd built over their year of fighting alongside each other, she mimed drawing the string before flipping over his crouched form to land directly behind him. They'd done it so many times in the field that he turned sideways automatically so that where she landed was in his periphery, and he was in hers. They grinned at each other and stood back up. The crowd applauded and Carly bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“It is a good move,” Heir said, breaking into the revelry. “You should add stealth to it, confuse your enemies and strike from the shadows.” The elf shrugged. “I cannot actually improve upon it more than that. Where did you learn it?”

Carly knew she couldn't very well announce that she'd learned it because it was a game mechanic. But she could blend in some truth, since her trusty dwarf _had_ actually shown her how it worked in reality. “Varric. He rolls more than he flips, but he taught me the move. I kept at it until I could jump high enough to clear even Iron Bull.”

“Your small stature seems to be part of the equation,” Heir said, musingly. Carly struggled not to frown. She hated being in such a tiny body. Still, she hadn't considered that it might contribute to the move's success. Heir looked back at her, something settled on her face. “Where do you carry your stealth grenades?”

“Here,” Carly showed her the slot for them on her belt, right in front where she could grab one quickly. Heir nodded.

“If you moved them to the side, still in easy reach, you could throw one on the arc of the flip, disappear into thin air as you land.”

Carly thought about it, going through the motions in her head. Heir was right, of course. It was already an upgrade to the move in the game. If she moved them to the slot currently occupied by her healing potions, she could grab one in midair while she was still coiled in a rapidly spinning form and toss it before she landed. She'd always wondered just how that would work in real life. The only trouble would be remembering that she'd swapped the two sets of bottles.

“It would take practice,” Heir said, as if she could read Carly's mind.

“All the good things do.” Solas snorted quietly next to her and she gave him a look that was equal parts taunting and heated. With a shake of his head, he wandered off to wherever he'd been going when he stopped in to watch her practice session. Carly turned her attention back to Heir. The elf wasn't exactly smiling, but it was close.

“Let us begin, then.”


	23. That Which Yields Is Not Always Weak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Backtracking in time to a point much earlier in the story. Carly and Solas compare the past and the present.

The others were asleep and the camp was quiet. Carly slipped out from the tent she shared with Solas – something expected automatically for them now, since the events at Redcliffe – and leaned on the giant statue in the center, peering up at the stars between the leaves of the Emerald Graves. It was every bit as beautiful and tragic as the game had portrayed it. And very different than wandering it in the Fade. She couldn't determine which one she preferred. On the one hand, the Fade didn't have giants. Or Corypheus. On the other hand, the waking world had food.

“What are you doing out here so late?”

She tilted her head to look at the object of her leaning, crossing the camp on silent feet. Without his armor he was back in a simple undershirt and patched half trousers, his lower legs completely bare of even wrappings. She gave him a quirk of a smile, noting how he skirted his gaze past the wolf statue to her. He stopped a bit away from her, close enough for conversation, but far enough that he wasn't touching the stone.

“Tell me why there are so many guardian statues around here. For someone so reviled by Dalish history, you sure made your presence known among the ancients.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that everywhere I go in the Dales, here in the Graves, the Exalted Plains, Emprise du Lion...everywhere, there are guardian wolves. You once watched over everything, didn't you?”

He looked up at the sky with her. “Once.”

“When the war ended, generals became respected elders,” she quoted. She saw him stiffen from the corner of her eye and smiled. She finished the quote. “Then kings, and finally gods. It's something you say about how the Evanuris were remembered as gods when they were really Elvhen mages. But not you. You stayed in the background of the politicking, but visibly tangible all over Thedas for the common folk. Why?”

“Because I was one of them.”

“You've always thought that, haven't you?”

“Yes.”

“But you really weren't, were you? Before rebellion and war, you lived a life of privilege and power. You just wanted to use that power for the greater good.”

“Yes.” That simple affirmation seemed to bother him, and she wondered why. Wondered if maybe it was guilt over what he'd done. The feeling that nothing he'd done had changed anything, made it better. He carried such a mountain of mistakes and regret with him.

She pushed off from the statue and went to him, touched his hand without taking it to draw his attention from wherever his mind had wandered to. “I know it must feel like you destroyed the world with the Veil, but you know, you really didn't. It's still here. The elves are still here.”

“Reduced to nothing.”

“Not nothing,” she contradicted. “Yes, reduced. But they are alive, they are trying to hold on to what remains. Well, the Dalish are anyway. Sometimes the path of least resistance is hard for others to understand. You think they gave in, gave up. It's easy to see surrendering as weakness when you've never had to do it. It isn't. It's harder to continue living, no matter how horrible it may seem to you, than to die for someone else's ideal. _Death_ is giving up, it's a finality, an end. Living never is. Living is continuing the struggle, day after day. Saying 'I won't let this defeat me', if it's the loss of everything you knew, or having your world crash around you, not knowing what to do next. Just getting by, going through the motions...continuing to live is a constant battle sometimes. 'What doesn't kill me makes me stronger'.”

“You are fighting,” he said, as if he was putting it together for the first time. She had been transported to this world, familiar but foreign. She had private struggles he knew nothing about, but could sense were there. She hadn't given up, not when her parents died, and not now.

He looked away from her, his face contemplative as he watched the stars. Finally, he sighed and met her eyes again. “Varric said much the same thing once.”

“The man on the island, right?”

“Yes.”

She was getting through the layers of armor he'd built up from guilt and accumulated resentment, slowly but surely. She couldn't push too much at once or he would retreat behind it. “C'mon, let's walk out to where we can actually see the sky. That was enough heavy talk for one night.”


	24. The Best Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Action packed dragon hunting in Emprise du Lion.

“Oh, Boss...” Bull said, eye gleaming, hands tightening on the massive broadsword she'd given him. He grinned at her from the cover where they watched the dragon sleep. “This is a good day. A very good day.”

“I thought you'd approve,” she replied with a grin.

They slunk back in the shadows and regrouped with Solas and Cassandra. Carly rummaged in her pack for something and pulled out a pair of shiny shin guards that she tossed at Bull.

“What are these for?” he asked.

“To protect your legs, duh. They're lined with snowfleur skin.” She looked up at Solas and nodded at his staff, one that she'd made for him and cheekily called Pride's Lightning. ”I made sure you have the right one. This dragon is all ice, all the time.” She rummaged some more and found what she was looking for. “Seeker, this is for you. I've never understood how these things work, but this one is supposed to give you extra stamina.”

Cass took the amulet from Carly's hand and looped it over her neck, dropping it under her armor. “Is that a warning not to wear myself out, Inquisitor?”

“Yes.” Carly made sure her quiver was full with explosives and her belt was loaded with little vials of poison before she stood up with her bow. A new one she'd crafted herself with Dagna's help. It nearly thrummed in her hands and the rune gave off a cloud of smoke whenever she moved. It had been a long time she used a fire weapon. “We ready?”

“I suppose we must kill it?” Cass said, almost lamenting.

“The patrols need these checkpoints back. We can't get at the Red Templars until we take care of this beast. Let's go.” She waved at her warriors to lead the way and held Solas back with a soft hand on his arm. “You going to be all right with bare feet? Dammit, I should have brought you something to wear with boots.”

“Vhenan...”

“What? It's going to be a pitched battle with an ice elemental dragon in water. You're the only one in serious danger of getting frostbite. Unless you're gonna tell me you can keep up an extra barrier on your feet the whole time? Isn't that a waste of mana, Fen'Harel?” She gave him a challenging stare. He looked mulish. She raised an eyebrow, unwilling to let it go.

“I will endeavor to stay out of the water, if that will make you feel better.”

“It'll do. Kiss me for luck, ma fen,” she said and hauled on him to bring him close enough. She still hated how short she was comparatively. He finally cracked a smile and cupped her face in his hands, kissing her until she was breathless and weak kneed. They both heard the roar of the dragon as Cass and Bull started their attack and raced up the final sweep of stairs to the open air of the coliseum.

She left Solas's side after he cast his barrier on her and drew on the new bow, loading an explosive arrow to eat away at the dragon's elemental shielding. From there it was a dance in several parts. Shoot, run, shoot, flip. Smoke for stealth, jars of bees that did little but annoy the beast. A full draw that made her whole arm zing with the power of the bow. Bull would taunt and Cassandra would flank when the dragon wasn't paying attention. Then they would switch. Solas kept up a steady barrage of spells, lightning racing across the wide pool in purple arcs.

Little by little they wore the dragon down, hacking and sneaking, shocking and disorienting. It took off into the air for a while, giving them a respite to swig potions if they needed to. Cass had a runnel of blood on her cheek from a swipe and Bull had taken a massive claw across his chest. She and Solas were mostly fine, although she noticed the edges of his Keeper robes were fraying at the edges, as if they'd frozen solid and shattered.

“Coming around,” Bull called and they fell back, away from each other, giving the dragon no single target to hit. A ball of ice slammed into the water where she had just been, sending up a plume of frost that made her fingertips stick to the silverite in her bow. She turned on her heel and shot into the air, not even paying attention to whether or not she struck as she ran onto what little solid ground there was.

The fight could have lasted an hour or a full day, she wasn't even sure, but eventually the beast screamed a final time and slumped to the ground. Solas was limping and Bull was bleeding freely from the cut on his chest. Cass must have daubed some elfroot on her face at some point since her cut was sealed and visibly healing. Carly was just cold. The benefit of being the archer who could stay out of range. She was out of explosives and had a single poison vial left.

“Not bad.”

“That was glorious!” Bull shouted. She shook her head at him.

“Solas, you good?”

“Yes, Inquisitor. I seem to have cut my foot on a stone.”

“Don't 'Inquisitor' me, I warned you.”

“I did not get frostbite,” he said, giving her a bland look and turning away to tend to Bull's cut. She snorted at his back. _Malicious compliance with the truth_ , she reminded herself. He must have heard it, since when he was done healing Bull he was smiling.

Cassandra opened the gullet of the dragon and a hoard of useful things spilled out. Carly went back to where they'd left their packs and brought the empty one she'd carried along for just this purpose, loading everything in it with barely a glance. It would all need to be cleaned anyway.

“All right gang, let's head back to camp. I need hot cocoa.”

“Did you bring some, Boss?” Bull asked in a boyishly hopeful way.

“I sure did.”

“This is the _best_ day!”


	25. Cathartic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short piece of Hawke and Carly ruminating on the past and the present.

Carly sat with Hawke in the evening sun, each of them balancing a brown bottle of ale as they enjoyed the last gasp of summer. A group of mages went by, exchanging some manner of discussion that apparently involved broad gestures and glowing magical diagrams that followed them as they walked. Hawke sighed.

“I wish Anders could see this,” she said, slurring only a little.

“What, Skyhold?”

“Them.” She waved her bottle at the mages, now sitting themselves down on the wall bordering the steep drop to the lower courtyard. “Mages, freely walking around and doing magic right out in the open. And nobody trying to kill them for it. It's all he wanted, you know.”

“You don't talk about it.”

“No, I guess I don't.” Hawke rolled the bottle between her hands before upending the whole thing down her throat. “He was a good man once. Principled, disciplined.”

“Oppression is a killer.”

“Yeah, well...so is he.”

“So are we.”

Hawke glanced at her, the last rays of sun catching in her eyes before it slipped past the mountains. “Is it so simple to you?”

Carly thought about that. She knew there was an entire shelf of scrolls detailing each and every Inquisition soldier who had lost their life for her. And there was an uncounted number of bandits, Venatori, demons and hapless folk just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time that had fallen to her bow. The Conclave had killed over a thousand people. Certainly the explosion of the Kirkwall Chantry had killed as many, if not more. And yet, the world would not be free if not for the blood that paid for it.

“Change is inevitably violent,” Carly said after a while. She thought maybe she'd lost Hawke to her drunken state, but the woman sat up straighter and her eyes were clear when she looked at her. “The Mage Rebellion began as a spark. The tinder had been long collected and was volatile enough that that's all it took. The Circles may have started out as a way to keep mages safe from danger and persecution, as well as a place for them to study and hone their skills, but a prison is still a prison, even if the bars are made of gold.” She shook her head. “And they usually weren't. I don't know what could have been done differently to expose the horrible conditions to the world.”

“As children, we moved from place to place, never settling down, never fitting in. We were always running because my father was an apostate, and Bethany followed in his footsteps.” Hawke scowled at her empty bottle, as if all her answers could be found in it. “He never wanted a Circle life for her. He never wanted any of us to live in the kind of fear that mage families do. I wish he was here too. You've made a better world for people like them, Carly.”

“Thanks, Marian. I did my best.” She tipped her bottle towards Hawke in a salute. “Mage rights.”

“Mage rights,” Hawke answered after barely a pause, her face shifting as she smiled. “I don't know if I believe in the Maker, but if He's real, I thank Him for bringing you here.”

Carly grinned and decided not to tell Hawke that it was actually Mythal. And even though Hawke's bottle was empty, they clinked them together like a toast and fell silent.


	26. A Quiet Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly is almost certain she's putting her nose where it isn't wanted, but...
> 
> Dammit, just let Alistair be hugged by his mom.

“King Alistair, if I may have a moment of your time?” Carly asked, cornering the former Warden and co-ruler of Ferelden before she left the banquet. Every nation had sent a representative, often several, often contentious even in light of their collective successes and all of them seeking her opinion or attention on one thing or another. As if defeating Corypheus hadn't been enough all on its own.

“You may gladly have a moment, Inquisitor. Provided it is out of this stifling hall.”

She chuckled, in no way disagreeing, and slid her arm through his to gently lead him towards the rotunda. “I may be completely out of line, and if I am, I want you to say so, but...” She paused as they left the Great Hall and stood in the short hallway connecting the keep to the squat tower adjacent to it. “I know you've spent much of your life searching for the identity of your mother. And you were told that she was a servant who died giving birth to you. This isn't true.”

“How do you know this?” He was a little defensive, and she had expected that. She knew it was a sore subject. She made a placating gesture.

“I carry a great wealth of trivia in my head, your Majesty. Some of which has proven very useful on behalf of Thedas. Some of which may prove useful to you, should you wish it.”

“You know who she is?” There was a yearning quality to his voice that his automatic attempt at dismissal couldn't hide.

“I do,” she said with almost a bow. “Would you like to meet her?”

He looked away, not really seeing the mural as it stretched out around the curves of the rotunda. She stood by, patient. It was likely overwhelming and she was fully prepared for him to scoff and disregard the whole thing. After several minutes, he turned back to her, his nod shy and fearful like a small child's.

She took his arm and led him to the stairs to the library, letting him precede her up to the second level where Fiona still preferred to stay out of the way near the research table Carly had poured so many hours into between missions. She hung back and let Alistair go on up. She watched Fiona turn at the sound of their approach, saw the shock paint her face blank for a moment before her eyes narrowed at Carly with knowing.

“Grand Enchantress Fiona?” Alistair asked, his voice weak and abashed. He turned back to Carly, confusion plain. “How?”

“The story is long, complicated and for another day. For now...just go talk to her.”

He didn't exactly run to the far side of the library, but his steps were too quick to be dignified or stately. Fiona watched him, pride and sorrow both on her face. When he drew close enough, they spoke. Their murmurs were too quiet for Carly to hear more than just the sound of their voices and she began to think about leaving. This was a private moment and she knew she shouldn't be watching.

But Fiona was holding his hands now, her eyes shining with unshed tears and Carly simply couldn't look away. Alistair folded the small elf into his arms and sort of collapsed like a great weight had lifted from him. Fiona held him a long time and there was no sound but the settling of dust and the harshness of their breaths echoing through the rotunda. Carly smiled to herself and slipped back down the stairs.


	27. Double Dating Canoodlers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adoribull! Solavellan! The Double Date Squad.
> 
> Takes place across the breadth of the story.

__

_Somewhere in the Hinterlands_...

“Better hike up your skirts, mage boy,” Bull sneered as the Red Templars rushed them. Dorian swung around his staff with more force and less flourish than usual, an exasperated expression on his face.

“I'm not wearing a _skirt_ ,” he exclaimed, bathing the foe nearest Bull with fire.

“You trip over that bustling...whatever...don't come crying to me,” Bull retorted, neatly slamming his warhammer into the spine of a horror that had been creeping up behind the mage in an attempt to flank him.

Carly just shook her head and focused on her aim.

 _On the second day of setting up Caer Bronach before Inquisition forces arrived_...

“So, Dorian, about last night...”

Carly squeaked out loud before she could stop herself. Dorian pinched the bridge of his nose and glared at her before transferring that glare to Bull. “Discretion really isn't your thing, is it?”

“Three times!” Bull crowed. “Also, did you want those silky underthings back or did you leave them as some kind of token?”

It was getting harder for her to keep silent as the group stacked up a messy woodpile of shattered crates. The keep itself was strangely laid out, but it was large. She knew they couldn't afford to let any combustible wood go to waste before they were able to fell some trees.

“Or wait...did you _forget_ them so you'd have an excuse to come back? You sly dog!”

Carly didn't even dare look at Solas. She didn't know if she was impressed or disappointed that Bull and Dorian had gotten further in their relationship than she had. Dorian looked much put upon and she bit her lip harder to keep the laughter inside. Solas cocked an eyebrow at the pair and said nothing.

Dorian swung on Carly, his face thunderous as realization washed over him. “You knew! You knew this would happen.”

“Yup,” she managed, before she lost her shit entirely. “Told you you'd figure it out yourself.”

Bull grinned at them both and sidled over to Dorian. “ _Are_ you coming back?”

Dorian sighed. “If you choose to leave your door unlocked like a savage...I may or may not come.”

“Speak for yourself,” Bull said, watching Carly mouth the words along with him. Now _he_ was giving her an exasperated look. “Is this why you always throw us together, Boss?”

“Yup,” she giggled. Bull frowned and pointedly looked over her shoulder at Solas.

“Better get a move on, mage.”

 _Somewhere in the Hissing Waste_...

Carly shivered. Now that they weren't fighting through the sand dunes anymore she was freezing. Solas beckoned her to where he leaned against a barrel in front of the fire and she sat herself down carefully between his outstretched legs. He wrapped the open ends of his wool coat around her, tucking her tight against his chest.

“Knight to C3. You've developed nothing but your queen,” he said over her shoulder to Bull, who was similarly wrapped around Dorian, who looked miserable.

“Don't get cocky, you're still one tamassaran down. Tamassaran to C5, by the way.”

“How long has this game been going on?” she asked, sticking her nose over the edge of the wolf fur. “I thought you guys were past this point already?”

“Rematch,” they both said. She snorted and huddled deeper into Solas. He put his arms around her and for a moment she simply reveled in the feel of him at her back. Under the cover of his coat, she let her palms slide against his thighs where the other two couldn't see it. Only the swift hiss of air near her ear told her Solas had had any reaction at all. She did it again, this time digging her nails in to scrape along his legs. They tightened around her just slightly.

“You'll pay, vhenan,” he murmured against her hair.

“Oh, I do hope so.”

Bull cleared his throat from across the fire, his eye knowing on them. Then he grinned. “Looks like you finally caught up.”

 _In the Skyhold garden_...

Carly sprawled on the bench, her legs draped over the side, her head in Solas's lap. He was reading, she was enjoying the view. She heard the door slam from the Great Hall and two bickering male voices.

“I cannot bring a Qunari openly into Minrathous, you lumbering jackass!”

“Kadan...”

“No, that is final.”

Solas looked up, his arm coming to rest across her chest with the open book in his hand. She turned a little and watched the pair across the garden from them stalking back and forth, their argument still raging.

“They've been at this all morning. I'm half wondering if it's just for show at this point,” she said.

“More than likely. They do enjoy their games,” Solas replied with a hum. They watched as Bull cornered Dorian in the shade of the ivy, his bulk covering the Tevinter entirely. It wasn't hard to tell what he was doing, however, with his arms raised up and Dorian making a sort of muffled squeal.

“Get a room!” Carly called across the garden. Bull turned just enough that she could see Dorian pinned against the wall, his face flushed dark under his tan, but no longer angry.

“Get your own,” Bull called back.

Solas snorted and switched his book to his other hand to keep reading. He left his arm draped across her, his fingers idly toying with the buttons on her shirt. They slipped against her skin, teasing and light. “Careful, ma fen, I'll start thinking you're playing your own games.”

She could see his lips curl from her position and sat up suddenly, knocking his book aside and straddling his lap. He wasted no time wrapping his free arm around her waist, keeping her there. The light in his eyes was devilish. She wiggled on him.

“Who is playing games now, vhenan?” He leaned in and nipped her bottom lip between his teeth. It had grown quiet at the other end of the garden but she wasn't paying attention now.

“We're a bad influence, amatus,” Dorian said suddenly, making Carly jump and look over her shoulder.

“Yeah, I think we are,” Bull drawled. “They never used to do this where anyone could see them.”

“Go take your foreplay somewhere else,” Carly said. “The garden is occupied.”

Bull hummed and Dorian snorted. Solas closed his book and tucked it between their bodies so his other arm could slide under her butt. Then he stood up with her, making her squawk. He walked past the pair of them, still carrying her.

“Gentlemen, I cede you the grounds.”

Carly gasped. “Solas!”

Bull and Dorian's laughter followed them all the way to the door.


	28. The Halla, the Witch and the Wolf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly and Morrigan talk. Takes place after Kieran goes into the Eluvian.

Morrigan gave her a piercing look as she crossed the garden to slouch against one of the columns of the stone gazebo. “Go ahead,” Carly said. “Ask.”

“I barely know where to begin, Inquisitor.”

“Start at the beginning.”

“Where are you from?”

“A world called Earth, where we have no magic and I am human instead of elf. For that matter, we _have_ no elves. In that world, this is just a game, fictional. Dorian thinks it's in another dimension rather than being measurable in distance.”

“How did you get here?”

“I fell out of the Breach, like I said. Before that, I was at my job, there was a flash of green light that I now think was a glimpse of the Fade, and I woke up here.” Carly stopped there, seeing Mother Giselle approaching. “Let's find somewhere more private to talk.”

Morrigan nodded and led Carly to the room where she kept the tall mirror she'd spent her adult life figuring out how to use. They settled onto furniture that had been draped with cloths to keep the dust off. “I have only your word for this.”

“And the knowledge I've already proven correct, like Kieran's dash into the Fade, and Flemeth being the host of Mythal.”

“There is that, yes. Tell me, what do you know of me?”

“You?” Carly thought about it. “I know you were raised in isolation in the Korcari Wilds, that you've always resented Flemeth's plans for you, that you fought in the Blight and met Kieran's father there. I know that Kieran was supposed to just be a tool to keep the Hero of Ferelden alive after killing Urthemiel, but you love your son with every fiber of your being. I know you hid with him in the Crossroads for a long time, so Flemeth wouldn't find you. And until you drank from the Well, you were successful.”

“You knew that she was carrying a piece of an ancient being.” Morrigan's tone was very nearly accusatory, but her face was not angry.

Carly gave her a half smile. “I did. And no, I couldn't tell you beforehand because I didn't know what to expect from her face to face. I also figured that even if I had told you, you wouldn't believe me.”

“You have kept your secret well. You seem to be keeping many of them.”

“I am.”

“How does this end?”

“I don't know,” Carly shrugged. “I know how it ends in my version of it. With the death of a creature pretending to be a god and the rise of another who really is one. But I can't say with certainty that will happen here.” She shrugged again and shook her head. “I've changed a lot of things. But I've also realized that no matter what I change, the outcome is still up in the air. If I die, it's over. If any number of other pieces fall out of place, it's over. Even if I succeed in killing Corypheus, other factors may fall apart and life as we know it will still be over.”

“This other god you speak of, is it Fen'Harel?”

“Did the Well tell you that?”

A small smile creased Morrigan's face. “You do not need me to answer that, do you?”

“No, not really. Although, I have to say, the Well's mysteries aren't ever really explained in my version of things. It's mostly a game mechanic so the main character can defeat Corypheus.”

“The...character. You mean you.”

“Yeah. The player is the Inquisitor.” Carly laughed. “You know, you're only the third person here to know that.”

“And the other two?”

“Solas and Hawke.”

Morrigan made a face. “The apostate is not what he says he is.”

“I know.”

Morrigan seemed almost relieved by Carly's calm assurance. The look she gave her now was knowing. “Are you going to tell me?”

“Are you asking that to see if I will or because you really don't know?” Carly countered. The Witch laughed, free and bright with good humor.

“'Twas mostly to see if you would. The Well is quite clear on the matter. He was well known to Mythal's servants.”

“I figured as much. I told him we would have to tell you sooner or later.”

“You have room in your heart to love a being of such destruction?”

“Yeah, cuz he's a man first. A rebel second, and a god only unwillingly.”

Morrigan laughed, seemingly at herself. “I can understand that feeling.” She looked at her Eluvian, her face highlighted by the shifting colors on it. “'Tis strange, when I arrived here, I thought it would be easy and uncomplicated. I would offer my assistance, we would fix the world...again, and I would go off on my own way. 'Tis not so uncommon, after all, that something threatens the world. And yet...”

“The Blight's got nothing on this, huh.”

“As you say, Inquisitor. I have pledged my service to your cause. I will keep your secrets, and his. 'Tis hard for me to comfortably fit within a group, but I can recognize a selfless act when I see it. Once I would have scorned such a thing. Now, I know 'tis better to be a part of something larger for the greater good than try to survive alone. I offer my support however I can.”

“Well, with any luck, it will actually _be_ easy and uncomplicated. I can dream, right?”

Morrigan chuckled. “Indeed you can. Perhaps we should all adopt such determined optimism.”

“Maybe we should. Morrigan...”

“Yes?”

“You know you don't have to go off on your own once this all over. You're welcome to stay.”

“That is kind of you, Inquisitor. We will see what the future holds. I pretend no such familiarity with it as you have. With that said, I thank you for the offer.”

There was a teasing aspect to the Witch's words and Carly smiled at her. “Fair enough.”


	29. Curses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trouble with being an inter-dimensional being stuck between multiple religious cultures...

Carly stubbed her toe against the table leg up in the library and swore under her breath. “Maker damn it to hell!”

A snorting guffaw reached her ears from around the bookcase and she looked up to see Dorian poking his head out and grinning at her. “You have such a colorful mix of expletives in your repertoire.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, but then she grinned back. “Am I mixing my religious metaphors again? I always forget.”

“Hmm.” He leaned on the bookcase and crossed his arms. “What, exactly, is 'hell'?”

“Comparable to...huh, I guess it's complicated,” she finished almost to herself. She hitched her hip onto the table she'd just kicked and thought about the best way to describe it. Andrastrians didn't have a concept of eternal fire and brimstone, but they had other things. “I guess it's like the Void, or the Abyss. It's the place evildoers go to be punished in the afterlife. Religiously speaking.”

“Does your Earth have a similar religion to our pious Chantry?”

“Yes. There's even a martyred figure like Andraste. Only it was a guy and he was nailed to a cross instead of burned alive.” She cocked her head and realized something else that was similar. “He was given a mercy killing too by a soldier who took pity on him. And he rose from the dead, allegedly, three days later to sit at the right hand of the Almighty.”

“Allegedly?”

“Earth has a lot of religions, they're all a little different.”

“So where does hell come into it?”

“In Christianity, the good go to heaven, the sinners go to hell.”

“Ahh, I believe I see. Risen up to light and glory, or sunk to the depths of torment.”

“More or less, yeah. Hell is a fiery place on top of it.”

“How theatrical.”

She snorted. She knew how Dorian felt about religion. He believed in the Maker, he even believed in Andraste as a historical figure of great importance. But the Chantry? Not so much. And she didn't blame him. The schism between the southern and northern versions was similar to that of the Protestant Reformation. And who was to say either side was right or wrong when both were predated by the Old Gods, who themselves were predated by the Evanuris? Thedosian religions were just as complex as Earth ones. And just as inter-related.

“Anyway, the way you guys curse things to the Void? I use hell. I like how dammit crosses dimensions, though.”

Dorian gave her a look with raised eyebrows. “I've heard other elves curse by the Dread Wolf's name. What's the story there?”

“Don't you know? Solas is the big, bad wolf in every fairy tale.” She shrugged before grinning impishly. “Whether he deserves it or not. It's easy to pick on the one who opposes the status quo and turn him into a villain on top of it.”

“But you knew the truth?”

“More or less. I'm not saying he hasn't done terrible things, I'm not an idiot. But I also know he had his reasons.”

“The ends justify the means?”

“I doubt he'd agree, considering how much the world has changed from what he knew. But every alternative was worse. He wasn't wrong about that.”

“He's lucky to have you. We all are.”

“Thanks, D. It's good to be appreciated.”

Dorian smirked at her. “Now, about the revered Inquisitor, the Herald of holy Andraste, cursing like a common soldier...”

“Oh, stop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, it's been a while since I updated this. I ran out of screenshots. There are only two more snippets to post, and then the rest of the chapters are going to be actual cut content from Twist. Like deleted scenes in bonus features. Happy new year!


	30. What Do We Do About Raleigh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carly talks with Samson.

Carly looked at the former Templar through the bars of his cell. He looked wretched, even clean and reasonably well dressed for a prisoner. He twitched to himself constantly and his eyes were haggard and red rimmed. He was gaunt and pale, his hair half bedraggled already from the tidy club it had been in before.

“I'll ask you again, Samson, do you want a dose of lyrium? The Inquisition can spare it, and it's far more likely to be pure compared to what you've been used to in the last two years.”

He snarled at her, wordless and full of spittle. She just looked at him patiently. Finally his bravado broke and he slumped to the floor of his cell, a miserable man in a miserable situation.

“Why are you so fucking _nice_?”

She huffed. “You were never an evil man,” she said, dragging over a chair and plopping herself in it. “I mean, as Templars go. You didn't abuse your charges. At least, not knowingly. The slaver thing...well, that was bad intel on your part, not malicious intent.”

“How do you know about that?” he spat.

“I know a lot of things, Samson. I know the Chantry chews up Templars and spits them out when their usefulness has ended. I know you followed Corypheus because at least his promises weren't just sugar coated lies. Your master underestimated me, don't make the same mistake.”

“He wasn't my master!”

“Yeah, he really wasn't. He was a choice.” She gave him a rueful look. “Addiction is a bitch. I'm not unsympathetic. This whole going cold turkey from the red shit could kill you, though. I want to help.”

“Why?”

“Because I think, under all that broken spirit and anger and disillusionment, there's still a half way decent person in there. The one that helped mages escape, even if his methods were misguided. The one that kept a Tranquil safe as long as he could. I'd like to meet him someday.”

Samson chuckled, raw and dry. “Soft, that's what you are. Too fucking soft.”

“Tell that to Corypheus. You know how I killed him, right?” She held up her left hand, made a show of examining the Anchor. “I opened a rift in his heart and sealed him in it while he still breathed. I've made some hard choices of my own in my time here. I'll make more too. Compassion is necessary, but it isn't soft. Not by any means.”

Her prisoner scuttled backwards from the look on her face. She couldn't imagine what he saw there. A threat? Kindness he didn't feel he'd earned or deserved? Either way, he moved back until he was against the wall and then he sort of collapsed on himself.

“He offered power when I had none of my own,” he said finally. Softly. No bravado or anger left. He just sounded exhausted. “I knew what he was and I took it with my eyes open. I don't deserve your compassion.”

“If I judged you in public, before the eyes of the Inquisition and Cullen Rutherford, you'd make a speech about how the choices of others led you here. And you'd tell me that whatever I did to you would be no more than you deserved and you wouldn't beg for mercy.” He made a scoffing face but she ignored it. “I'd have some choices too. I could execute you, and be done. I could conscript you and tear your armor apart to see what makes it tick. I could make you live out your life as a prisoner, Raleigh.” She waited until he was looking at her again, and she wondered how long it had been since someone had called him by name. “I'm not interested in any of those.”

“What do you _want_ , woman?” he growled.

“I want to know what you want for yourself. What would make you proud to be alive again. What would you want to do with yourself if you had the opportunity.”

He looked away, his sneer slowly dropping from his face until nothing remained but slack jawed silence. Eventually, he took a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “I don't know what I want, Inquisitor.”

“Do you want to start with getting clean from the lyrium?”

“Not really.” It was probably the most honest thing he'd said since she walked in there and she gave him a small smile.

“Ya know, Templar abilities are magic too. No matter what the Chantry says about it. Instead of drawing on the Fade, it draws on the lyrium song. The red lyrium perverted that, twisted it out of tune, so to speak. And it was never one that was meant to be consumed by mere mortals. Any way you slice it, being a Templar is a guaranteed trip to madness. But you can still come back from it. If you try.”

“Like you helped the perfect Commander Rutherford?” he sneered.

“Yeah, actually.” She snorted and let him hear it. “Cullen wants your head on a pike. He's so caught up in his anger that he doesn't realize just how easily he could have _been_ you.” She had his attention, even though he wouldn't look directly at her. “I forgave Thom Rainier for being a murderer of children. I forgave Solas for being at fault for Corypheus getting his hands on the orb. I have room for a tiny bit more forgiveness. But you gotta earn it. You gotta make it worth my while. If you break any trust, it will end very poorly and very quickly for you. But if you have what it takes, I'll find a way for you to start your life over.”

She stood up and put the chair back where she found it. Samson's eyes followed her the whole time, although he probably thought he was being sneaky about it. She stopped at the door of the underground prison of Skyhold and looked over her shoulder. “Just think about what you want for yourself. We'll go from there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Queenofkadara and schoute are responsible for the idea of this one. I lovingly blame them both for making me sympathetic.


	31. Freckles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solas reflects upon knowing Carly, and the telepathic bond they shared.

The first time he caught the thought, it was a sunny day in the Hinterlands. When he glanced at her, she had already looked away. He didn't think much of it, a random stray thought. He knew it happened, it even happened to him. He was grateful no one could overhear his internal monologue the way he could hear hers. Certainly not now, when so much had gone wrong with his plans, when he was forced to interact with this motley group and there was little hope in sight.

Except for her. She already knew what he needed, what he planned. She held hope that she could redirect this madness into certainty. It was equally as disconcerting.

There was the time the thought was loud in her head as he convinced her to eat something as they waited for Corypheus to attack Haven. From where she was sitting, she couldn't even see them, that he was aware. She had rapidly tried to hush her own wayward thoughts, especially after the image that had appeared of him spanking her. He let a smile cross his face and the image shorted out abruptly, replaced by a repeating litany. He didn't think she was even aware of it, she was so focused on keeping him out of her other thoughts.

He sat on a stair below her, his grief so consuming he could barely think. Wisdom was gone. She mourned with him. Her fingers were cool and soft on his face as she traced them, thinking to herself that it was an odd thing to see on a man so ancient. That they made him look younger than his years, more... _human_. And yet, he detected only a warm regard in that sentiment. It pleased her. He wasn't sure what to make of that.

In the dappled sunlight of the Emerald Graves, she made him blush. He could feel it burning his face and ears. And the thought was loud in her head. This time when he looked at her, she was still staring. Her gaze shifted to meet his and it was her turn to blush, caught. Sometimes hearing her thoughts was as plain as reading a book. Sometimes it was impressions, covering over layers of other thoughts, subconscious and hidden from him. This was one such. She had made a realization, put together some of her understanding of him. It was tied again to his age, his sense of belonging to the world where she did not. He had no way to tell her without giving away how much he heard that she was wrong. She _did_ belong.

In the Fade version of her world, where nothing made sense to him, where everything was loud and crowded and they were both still hurt and angry...he caught it. A slip of her mental leash, his face lit up by the glow of the box she had dubbed 'refrigerator', accompanied by the idea that it was a cold storage for perishable food. It lingered, that errant slip of thought, in the back of his own mind. She liked them. They were endearing to her, even as she cursed him as a prideful fool. He came to the conclusion that she was unaware that she thought of them at all. He did not revise his opinion that she belonged in Thedas so much as expanded it. She was a creature of two worlds, rather like himself. They merely had different origins.

She made loud mental remarks about his...posterior attributes. She wondered if he had any there. They were not yet in a place where he could let her know if he did. And then she wiped clean any idea of it as she pieced together his puzzle fully. The shock of it was cold, so encompassing that he couldn't breathe. He had to get out of her sight before he did something, anything. Scream, or cry perhaps.

And of course, she found him. It seemed she always would. She stepped through his wards, the Anchor making them recognize her as part of him. Wasn't that an irony?

And when he _did_ cry, when he released a torrent of anguish in her arms, she wiped his cheeks, brushing over them, kissing them with more reverence than he deserved. He was so lost in her, so completely and utterly hers. He didn't think she fully knew just how much, to what lengths he would go to keep her safe and at his side.

He discovered that she had some of her own. Gracing her shoulders and forearms, her knees and calves, the stretch of skin between her collar bones and throat. A smattering across her face, that he had already known. She was covered in constellations as he was. They worshiped each other in the same way, it seemed.

He woke from healing uthenera. His purpose had been achieved. He was nothing now.

Well, he was not _nothing_. He was a god in every sense mortals could comprehend. As she could, even though she knew the truth. He could no longer hear her thoughts, not since he had taken back that which was his. That which had connected them so thoroughly. He found he missed it.

The sun in Kirkwall was hazy as it fought to reach the earth through clouds of smoke from forges. But in the Viscount's garden – lovingly tended by a Dalish woman who eyed him with no fear, although there was knowledge in her eyes – the sun was warm and he basked in it.

“You'll burn up like a tomato,” Carly said, entering the garden on near silent feet. Whether she knew it or not, she had become like him in more ways than one. Before all of this, it would have disturbed him. Now it was just one more thing to connect them, something they shared.

“No, I shall not,” he asserted. It was a gift to her. They had faded in his time of sleep. He cocked his head at her and gave her the smirk he knew she adored. Her eyes glittered when she saw it. “I shall just grow new freckles. I know how you love them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final snippet. The rest of the chapters will be deleted scenes and alternate takes. Some might end up with random screenshots because I have a ton of them. Some will also be super spoilery for Twist, so I'll be holding off on posting them until the relevant material is published.
> 
> Cheers!


	32. Canon Tried...But I Yeeted It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the second portion of this collection. I feel a bit like a director sitting back to run commentary. The rest of these chapters will be deleted scenes or alternate versions of chapters that didn't make the cut (hence the title if any of you had been wondering).
> 
> I wrote much of Twist out of order. Sometimes whole sections were written while I was still putting together the more linear version of the draft. Before there was a chapter of unrepentant fluff after returning safely from Vir'Abelasan (chapter 39 - Melt With You), there was this beginnings of a fight. A bit more of a canon reaction from Solas, without the whole wyvern cave break up. By the time I reached this point of the story, their relationship was very different from what's portrayed here, so it got cut. But this has some of my favorite Carly Snark(tm), so I couldn't just throw it away.

“Why did you let her drink?” he demanded. “There was untold power in the Well.”

“Would you have preferred it if _I_ drank it? I already know what's in there. She has far more use for it than I do. Besides...” She cut herself off. No, she didn't need to bring up what he would do to Mythal if they lost the orb. Because she was not going to let it happen.

“What?” He patently knew she'd cut her words short. Not that it mattered, she was sure he could hear them anyway. At least these days he gave her the courtesy of only reacting to what she _said_ , rather than what she _thought_.

“Never mind. It's...this isn't the game. I still have to remind myself of that.”

“Events play out so differently, then?” His tone was sharp and challenging and she glared at him.

“Yeah, they do.”

“How many things have you changed?”

“Not enough,” she muttered.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Something in his tone put steel in her spine. He was itching for a fight, she could taste it. Fine, she would give it. “It means you're still procrastinating on how to safely bring down the Veil without killing everyone in the world.”

He waved her off, a wave of frustration pouring off him. It made her want to growl at him. “I am still considering,” he said. “I am not fully convinced saving this world is worth it. And if it is, how wrong has that made me? I do not like to think I have so misjudged the world.”

“Solas, are you Pride or are you Arrogance?” she let out, probably with more vehemence than he expected since he frowned. She sighed and rubbed her eyes with the balls of her hands. “Sorry, it's just...Solas, it's not bad to admit you were wrong, and to make amends knowing that, instead of compounding the problem. Two wrongs don't make it right.”

“Neither will doing nothing.”

“I'm not saying 'do nothing', I'm saying don't willfully destroy the world and everyone in it. There's a wide margin between those two, you know. God, you Elvhen,” she huffed. “Why must there be all this drama?”

He pouted. There was no other word for it. They stared at each other across the worktable, each of them with arms crossed and faces set. She was tired of having this discussion with him. And it hurt that they were still having it, time and time again, a physical pang in her heart like she'd swallowed a stone. She turned away from him before he could see it on her face.

“Carly...” He stopped, but even with her back turned she could tell that he was trying to get past his own frustration to be gentle.

“Don't.” She sighed and tried to keep her shoulders from hunching. “Don't be an asshole one minute and kind the next. The cycle is getting old. I'm going to bed.”

“You want me to give up on thousands of years of plans in order to change them entirely for something new. Without any resistance.”

She stopped at the door of the rotunda and looked over her shoulder at him. “Yeah, I do. Because that's what normal people do when they realize they've made a mistake. They try to do better, not make the same mistake again.” A sad sound escaped her before she could stop it. “I'm sorry that's so hard for you to see. I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. That's a gulf I can't bridge.”

“Carly wait...”

“No. I'm done and I'm going to sleep. Goodnight.”

She walked away before he could call her back, before she gave in and stopped fighting him, before she let any fear of losing him creep in. She couldn't make his mind up for him. He was on his own.

She lied to him. She did not sleep.


	33. Meeting With Flemythal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially, Carly's talk with Flemythal was going to go a completely different way, and in fact was going to take place separate from their meeting with Morrigan and Kieran present. Parts of this made it to the final version, but most of it didn't. (Which is a pity, honestly, because I loved this version very much. Hence my need to save it.) 
> 
> This plotline operated on the headcannon that Solas was going to actually rewrite time, and therefore there would be a paradox. Ultimately I scrapped that whole idea because then I'd have to write a time travel fix-it for my AU fix-it and that just wasn't on the agenda.

“He must choose, to right his wrong and lose you, or to keep the world as it is, and forsake all he means to fix to keep you.”

“No.”

“He cannot have both, da'len. Rewriting the world would prevent the necessity of ever bringing you here.” Flemeth's eyes were kind even as the words fell on her like stones. “And even if it did not, the woman standing before me, Dalish Inquisitor, would not exist. She would be someone else.”

“I can't ask him to give up all his plans for me. It's...”

“Selfish?” The old woman smiled crookedly. “Too often we sacrifice our desires for others, da'len. This is not a time to do so. If you wish to redeem him, you must make him choose.”

“Everything he fought for, everything he sacrificed. He just wants to make it right, and now I have to tell him there's no way to do that that will end with us living happily ever after. That doesn't make it any better!”

“No, it does not.” Flemeth cupped her cheek, simultaneously so ancient as to defy description and yet nothing more than a woman, once spurned and hurt. “His existence here has always been a trial to him. I own my share of the blame for that. I twisted his purpose to a new one, molded wisdom into pride. He carried the burden of unwanted leadership, and it took him far from me. And then I was killed before I could release him. So he released himself.”

“And he lost his way,” Carly said.

“He did. You succeeded where I failed, da'len. Do not let that slip from you.”

She backed away from Flemeth. “I cannot force this choice on him. It's as wrong as binding him to flesh.” The Witch's eyes turned hard, but Carly met them without fear. She was not expendable, and no one was going to hurt her here. “I can only advise him, and trust him to know what he wants.”

“You have such faith in him?” She sounded scornful, as if no man could be trusted with such fidelity. But Carly knew him, body and soul. If he gave up his plans to stay with her, she would love him regardless of the guilt she would feel every time he touched her. If not, it didn't matter. She wouldn't even know. There was no happy solution, and discussing it further wouldn't change that.

“He is no longer the Rebel Wolf you remember, Mythal,” she said. It was hard, but she turned her back on Flemeth and walked away, leaving the sunny, green glade behind her.

***

Carly watched the sun slip behind the mountains. She didn't know how long she'd been standing there, staring out across the expanse without seeing it, but it must have been hours. She'd passed from sore to numb on her feet, from warm to chilled as the night air settled on Skyhold. But she couldn't make herself face the others. She couldn't face Solas.

As if she'd conjured him, she heard his footsteps in the room, growing closer as he came out to the balcony to join her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. It hurt, knowing what she now knew and she closed her eyes against it. A tear slipped from under her eyelids to track down her cheek.

“Tears, vhenan?”

She let the conversation with Flemeth play out in her head. He'd hear it well enough. She didn't have to force herself to speak the words that would damn her either way. His body grew stiff behind her and she kept her eyes closed, waiting for him to withdraw. This wasn't the way she'd planned to thwart his plans. Not like this.

For a moment, he leaned his head against her hair, pressed a kiss to the back of her head and murmured something too low to catch. Then his arms slipped away from her, and when she opened her eyes, he was gone.

“Carly,” she heard from inside the chamber. “Come to bed.”

Startled, she turned around and saw the gleam of his skin as he dropped his sweater on the floor. She stared and just watched as his pants followed. He had to know she was looking, since he just stood there, head slightly cocked to the side, back towards her. _No man that lean should have that great of an ass_.

He chuckled.

“You dip too much.”

“You are so loud,” he retorted.

“You don't usually complain about that.” She leaned on the door to the balcony, still watching him. He'd finally turned around. The tattoos on his chest stood out starkly in the light of the lanterns. He let her look at him, at the long lines of muscle conforming to his bones. He was utterly unabashed under her gaze and she smiled. “So we aren't going to talk about it?”

He made a face, equal parts 'I'm thinking about it' and 'I'm procrastinating'. “Not right now, no. Come to bed.”

She stripped and went to bed.


	34. The Truth About Titans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have often talked about how much chapters change from drafted to published in either the author's notes or comments. Especially headcannon glitter chapters. Here is a prime example. The final version of this is What We Cannot Know. I still kinda like this version. In fact, I like it a lot. But given the direction I was taking Twist, it no longer fit.

(They all look so excited, don't they?)

They made camp in a quiet nook out of sight of the carved wall where Valta still stood trying to decipher the runes, Renn guarding her back. Carly didn't need to know what it said. Solas frowned at her; he didn't need to know either, and it seemed he'd finally figured out why she'd brought him along.

“A word, vhenan,” he said, drawing her to her feet and walking some distance away from Cole and Blackwall. “You want to ask, so ask.”

She gave him a half smile. “Took you long enough.”

“I did not know how much you were already aware of.”

“Surprisingly little when it comes to actual lore from the game. I've got a head full of theories, though.”

His lips quirked. “All right. Where do you want to start?”

“The first record of dwarves in Thedas is somewhere around 4600 Ancient, according to the Chantry calendar. So...the war, the one that gave the Evanuris supremacy over Thedas. Against the Titans?”

“Yes.”

“He hasn't said it yet, but I still half wait for it. Cole knows that the dwarves were shaped from the Stone. Which means I know it too. Gilly's work?”

“Gilly?”

“Ghilan'nain.”

“How...irreverent. And again, yes.”

“Because she had a need to create or because Mythal needed workers?”

“Both, I would say. Ghilan'nain had a lust for discovery. She is known now to the Dalish as the mother of halla, but that is not all she created.”

“Kossith, too, I imagine, although how they migrated here from wherever has never been known and is beside the point right now.” He nodded. She couldn't tell if that was agreement that the goddess had created the race that became the Qunari or that it was besides the point. Or both. She didn't press. “Anyway, was that before or after subduing the Titans to sleep?”

“Before.”

“The severed arm of a once mighty beast,” she quoted. He gave her a questioning look. “Your description of dwarves, and why they don't dream.”

“It is mostly...accurate.”

“The severed head, I'm guessing. How else would you get a soul inside a creature made from stone than from its forefather's brain. But you can't exactly go around telling dwarva that they were created from the literal corpse of a pillar of the earth.”

“You seem to have little need of questions, vhenan.”

“You're right. Idle speculation about this for years mostly means I'm just looking for confirmation. The part I don't understand is how the Sha-Brytol fit into it.”

“They were the first viable creation. Ghilan'nain's initial experiments ended in mindless husks. They could move, mine the lyrium that was the lifeblood of the Titan, but they could not think, could not make decisions. They would need constant and endless supervision. The Evanuris would not have been able to leave them here to toil alone. Combining the stone children with the living lyrium gave them...”

“Life, _true_ life. How did that end up with the race we know today?”

“Further experimentation. Layer by layer, she shed the Stone from which they were formed until they were flesh and blood of their own. Evidently the Sha-Brytol remained active and viable without anyone's knowledge.”

“Removing any knowledge of the Titans from the Shaperate was probably your doing, I suppose? It seems to be your gift, like Cole's.”

“That was many years later.”

“When they might have revolted against the Evanuris, both for creating them as slaves and because by then they revered the Stone instead of their creators.”

“That was conspicuously not a question.”

“I've spent enough time researching and thinking about why the Evanuris, once benevolent rulers and wise leaders, became tyrants worthy of being locked behind a Veil,” she said sardonically. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Add the Blight into that mix...”

“You end in disaster,” he finished for her. He wouldn't meet her eyes then, still feeling guilty after all these years for what he had done.

“That's also when the Titans began to sleep, isn't it? No other way to control the very ground we walk upon than to subdue it. You can't kill it, the world would literally end. But if you made it sleep, it wouldn't know what happened around it.”

“Correct.”

“Who are the Forgotten Ones, Solas?”

He hadn't been expecting that, she saw. His entire demeanor changed instantly, stiff and wary, expecting attack, almost. It was the gradual and deliberate relaxation that made her raise an eyebrow at him. “You really do know everything, don't you?”

“Answer the question, ma fen.”

“They were Ghilan'nain's assistants. You did not think she worked her research with her own hands, did you? In time, they grew to detest her creations, thought them unjust and inhumane. They refused to work further, withdrew after stealing much of her knowledge and records. They hid among the dwarves for a time, invisible.”

“Because they hadn't forgotten how to be spirits.”

“Yes, one would assume so.”

“And you remained in contact with them. The legends say you were friendly to both sides.”

“I agreed with them on many things, yes. And I spoke against retribution towards them. Mythal was swayed, although the others were not. They heeded her judgment, nonetheless. Ghilan'nain turned her attention elsewhere and began anew.”

“Her own kind.”

“Often, yes.”

“And the Rebel Wolf was born.” Carly put the new pieces together with what she'd guessed over the years. “Why was Mythal murdered? It wasn't the Blight, like I thought, was it?”

“The Evanuris were divided into opposing realms of thought. Some wished to mold the world to their liking, others preferred it to proceed naturally. Andruil and Ghilan'nain wished to take the life of another Titan, to glut themselves with an entire wellspring of lyrium. June was in agreement with them, for he used lyrium in his crafts as well. They were consuming it faster than it could be produced by the sleeping bodies.”

“Greed and lust for power. Mythal refused to let them, didn't she? You called her the voice of reason.”

“Indeed. She knew, as I did, that taking another pillar of the earth would weaken this world's foundations unnecessarily. In the end, June, Andruil and Ghilan'nain took matters into their own hands. Elgar'nan was furious, but powerless. His wrath was turned against him, and he was made to look a fool before the eyes of the People. And the others did not wish to make themselves targets, so they did not fight.”

“And you, and the Forgotten Ones, were cast out.”

“Yes.”

“And they tainted a Titan, the one that makes red lyrium. Because it grows faster.”

“Yes.”

“Did you seal that thaig too?”

“No. Dirthamen did. Sylaise gave him tools she'd stolen from June. He wove them with his own and sealed the primeval thaig. Not well enough, it seems.”

Carly shook her head, disagreeing. “It served for thousands of years. I'd say it would have continued if you hadn't had to put up the Veil. I'm not blaming. Just..some things were bound to be forgotten as contingencies. You had bigger problems. Where was Falon'din in all this?”

“Reveling in the chaos and death. His need for adulation outstripped his better judgment when it came to forward thinking. Each of them pit their people against each other instead of settling it between themselves. Whole nations of Elvhen were lost before it ended.”

“Isn't that always the way of it.” She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms, lost in thought for a moment. “You said the others didn't fight. You had no allies among them at all?”

“Only Dirthamen. But he would not abandon his soul twin for me. He secreted me out of Arlathan, gave me the first keys to the Eluvian network and returned to the others.”

“And he's remembered today as the god of secrets. He kept them well.”

“He did. But in the end, he remained loyal to the others, and I could not spare him any sympathy.”

“And so they were all locked away.”

“Yes.” He gave her a thoughtful look. “You are taking this well.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I knew they weren't gods. All of this is just putting into perspective everything I'd already guessed. I just needed the details to make it all fit.” She smiled at him. “I knew you had to have a good reason for doing it. I always knew that much.”

“They would not have stopped. If not tainting another Titan, it would have been the unchecked slaughter of them to get to the lyrium.”

“For an immortal race, they sure were impatient.”

“Yes. And unused to being thwarted for anything.”

“All right, that's enough about that. You realize that this Titan is awake, right? That's what the earthquakes are. We are inside it now, and we'll find the wellspring tomorrow.”

“I had assumed you knew where you were going and how this would end. You do, don't you?”

“Yes. Valta will end up being connected to the Titan, because she's pure. She has the strongest stone sense of her generation, and as a Shaper she's never been poisoned by raw lyrium.” A new thought occurred to her. “The castes...were they engineered into the dwarves too? Like a reflection of your own society?”

“If I had to hazard a guess, yes.”

She smirked. “They even mark the casteless with tattoos, ya know. And no memory of any of it.”

“Are you planning to tell her and Renn?”

“Pfft, no. Why would I? It would upset their entire culture to know they were bioengineered by elves. If they even believed me in the first place. Not worth it.”


	35. Lamb's Gotta Write a Bathing Scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there is one trope I actually enjoy without subverting it somehow, it's lovers bathing together. There's something so intimate and domestic about it, and it shows up at least once in nearly every longfic I write these days. 
> 
> This was originally going to be the chapter that later became To Soothe, To Burn. But I got very blocked trying to turn this into smut (because yes, the smutty chapters are plotted even though they generally contain none). And in the end, I scrapped the whole thing and started over to give Solas a mild kink instead (having his hair pulled if you missed it). This does still take place in their Kirkwall house, however, after Solas's Fade battle and return from healing uthenera.

Carly pulled the pins from her hair, letting it cascade down her back, stilled coiled on itself. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror and shook it loose. Solas came into the bedchamber and watched her there.

“Something on your mind, vhenan?”

“I'm wondering if I should cut it.”

“Why?”

“It's too much to deal with with only one hand. It always gets snagged on the prosthetic.”

He crossed the room and picked up her brush, smoothing out the snarls with care. She watched him through the mirror, a lock of his own hair falling across his forehead as he bent forward behind her to see what he was doing. “I would miss it, but it is your choice, of course. If it would make things easier for you...”

“I would miss it too, but...” She waved her ceramic arm up, flexing the fingers. “I dunno. Just spitballing I guess.”

“Spitballing?”

“Throwing out ideas. I mean, it's only hair. It will grow back if I cut it. And by the time it's long again, I would probably be that much more used to dealing with it one handed.”

“That is true. In the meantime, may I offer to take care of it myself?”

“What did you have in mind?”

He smiled at her and led her to the massive washroom that was part of their suite of rooms. He'd drawn a bath in the marble tub, steaming faintly and scented with floral oils. Solas undressed her with care, asking if she'd like to take the prosthetic off. She did, since getting it wet meant taking hours to dry out since the ceramic soaked in more than skin. He laid her arm on the side table and when he came to her side, he took her stump in his fingers and kissed it gently, as if her hand was still there. She shook her head at him in amusement. _Leave it to this smooth, hopeless romantic_ , she thought.

She stepped into the tub and sank down into the scented water with a sigh. It stung against her stump, but that was only because it was still sensitive. Solas stripped and joined her – the tub was big enough for an entire hunting party, after all – and drew her to lean against his chest while braced between his legs.

“You had already filled this bath before you offered to take care of my hair, so what's on _your_ mind, ma fen?”

“You have been working too hard. And we have had little time to relax of late.” He brushed the mass of wet hair to the side and draped it over her shoulder, then his fingers smoothed across the back of her neck and down as far as he could reach. There was magic in his touch, a soft buzzing that was far more pleasant than she thought it would be. Tense muscles shivered and loosened up under his hands and he chuckled.

“So, you just wanted an excuse to do some pampering of me?”

“If you like.”

He pressed against her back so she sat back up, keeping one hand braced on her while the other curled around her front. The flat of his hand on her spine tingled and waves of soothing magic washed across her skin. She groaned a little at the relief and he made a sound of approval. When she was relaxed to his satisfaction, he gathered up the mess of her hair and wet it more thoroughly before reaching for the shampoo she hadn't even seen on the edge of the tub. Not that it was that surprising, this thing was like a pool.

His strong fingers massaged into her scalp, worrying away the tension in her jaw even as he washed her hair. She smiled at the notion. When he had her lean back to rinse, fully supported in his hands, she could see his face beaming with a sort of pride that she trusted him enough to not drop her into the water.

She snorted at him. “Did you really think I don't trust you to bear my weight? All the times you carry me around?”

“I would not presume to think that things have not changed. Losing a...” He stopped, still unable to force himself to say it.

She made a sympathetic face, which was funny, since she was the one armed one. “Losing a limb. It's okay, ma fen. And it didn't change anything.”

He helped her sit back up and drew her back so that she was essentially sitting in his lap. He smoothed conditioning oil into her hair so it wouldn't tangle and when he was done, she leaned against him, pulling his arms around her.


	36. The Focus and the God Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are two parts to this bit. At one point, I fully intended for Carly to keep her arm. There was some convoluted mess of a plotline that involved neither Carly or Solas knowing what happened when the orb went dark after the battle with Corypheus. Solas was going to take back his magic much sooner and it would all have been roses and sunshine. It simply didn't work. These two bits (shared together because they're both so short) are as far as I got with writing that plotline before scrapping it.

1.

“Solas?” Carly stepped into the hidden chamber, and saw him leaning against the pillar where he'd stored the focus. “Are you all right?”

He straightened up and tucked his hands behind his back. The stance was at once familiar and strange. How many times did he do that in game? How often had she watched his body language as he told her of old gods and wars and the frightful reality to which he woke? And now...

There was a quality to his stillness that was new. The focus was still dark.

“Still nothing?”

“Not...nothing. The orb is empty, vhenan. I now know why.”

“Why?”

“Because its power is in you.”

“What?!”

“You used it to close the Breach, did you not? And you should not have been able to send Corypheus to the Fade. You are not a mage. I do not know why it didn't occur to me sooner.”

Carly looked at her hand, the Anchor glowing angrily. Already the pain was nearly constant, a low level ache that rarely interfered with day to day things, but was bothersome just the same. “What does this mean, Solas?”

A cold frisson of fear dripped down her spine as he turned to look at her. Even without the power of the orb, he held untold ability, and was no longer under any pretense of hiding it.

 _He can still kill with a thought_.

His head cocked. He'd heard her thought, of course. “Vhenan, are you afraid of me?”

“A bit, yeah.” They didn't lie to each other, not now. She acknowledged her fear aloud and stayed where she was in the doorway. _There's some basic symbolism_ , she thought. One foot on either side of this choice. She could give it back, or she could keep it. Giving it back mean trusting he wouldn't just rip down the Veil no matter what they'd decided together. Keeping it meant it would kill her, slowly but surely.

“I would never harm you,” he said.

“Not intentionally.”

He turned fully, something eerie in his calmness that she couldn't quite place. “Ar lath ma,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“Do not doubt, or fear. You are mine and I am yours. And this means that you now hold the key to bringing down the Veil.”

“What do you mean?”

“I cannot do it without the power inside you. I alone do not have the strength for something so massive and intricate. But you do.”

“But I'm not a mage...”

“No, you are not.”

“Do...don't you want it back?”

“You do not trust me with it,” he said softly. There was no anger there, no censure. Only acceptance and she realized that he had chosen wisdom over pride, at long, long last. Her breath caught. That's what was different about him.

2.

There was a blaze of light in his eyes that she recognized so well. Whole universes captured within. When he blinked it faded and the silver blue returned. His face was set in hard lines, no softness at the edges. Even in his simple tunic, he exuded every bit of the presence he'd had at the end of Trespasser. _Stop it, Carly, he isn't that character. He is a man, spirit made flesh made the closest thing to an immortal god this world will know_. And she scoffed to herself as if that was not enough to drive a sane woman to madness.

He approached her slowly, smiling. He was just her Solas again, bordering on melancholy, wise and calm and patient and all the things she loved about him. But the air still crackled with the intensity rolling off him. She froze from it, unsure if she would be worshiped or obliterated. _A rabbit caught in the eyes of the wolf_. He stopped in front of her and cupped her cheek. He leaned in and kissed her and he tasted no different.

All at once the tension eased and dissipated. She stumbled into him with a soft exhalation and his arms came around her, kissing her harder. It spiraled up and she felt light, like she could float away on a puff of wind. She tightened her arms around him, holding herself still and grounded, and he seemed to be doing the same. She was now his anchor. When the kiss ended, he lay his brow against hers.

His lips curved with warmth. “Now I remember how it feels to be whole.”

“And how does it feel?”

“I would rather show you, vhenan.”

Her breath stopped in her lungs at his tone. Not from fear, but pure anticipation.


	37. An Impartial Decision, AKA: How to Make Abelas a Major Character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire ending arc of Twist was going to be quite different at first. There were several nearly full length chapters that got cut as this entire section was rewritten. Originally, Solas was going to take down the Veil immediately after completing the Descent DLC, so this would have been a post-Veil, newly magical Carly. Abelas was going to feature more often, becoming an advisor to them both as they figured out how their politics were going to work moving forward. 
> 
> In the end, he gave me a long look and told me he was going to take the friendship route instead. He's still the General of Solas's army of Sentinels though.

“There is no point in this,” Solas stormed, pacing back and forth in the rotunda. Abelas stood silent, as always, and Carly sat at the worktable – in Solas's chair no less – and watched her lover fume. “Every message that returns is just another pain in my ass!”

“Solas!” she exclaimed, too surprised to do anything but laugh. “You've spent too much time with me.”

He stopped and his whole body gave an agitated shudder before relaxing. Then he quirked a grin at her. “Perhaps I have.”

She sighed and brought the conversation back on topic. “Look, let me try diplomacy. Please. I'm still in contact with Dorian, and Bull is with him, still sharp, still Ben-Hassrath. You can't ask for a better bodyguard than a Qunari. I can manage a single meeting with Empress Celene, and Leliana would be on hand too. I don't want to have ended one war just to start another.”

“I can't let you go into Halamshiral alone, vhenan. I would tear down the fabric of reality if anything happened to you.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I'm not a weakling.”

“No, you are not. But you are unused to magic, have only gained mastery of the merest portion of it, and there are other considerations.” He began to pace again. “There are too many unknowns going into the lair of the enemy.”

“Solas. Weren't you planning on doing that yourself?” she asked, pointedly. “Don't even start with trying to tell me it's different for you just because you had a plan. I know what your plan was. Turning the entire Imperial Court into stone, while an amusing mental image, is _not_ going to help us.”

“It would send a message.”

“My love, is that really the kind of message you want to send?”

“A show of force...”

“And we're back to the whole starting a war angle,” she interrupted. “Okay, we need an impartial opinion. Abelas?”

The Sentinel seemed taken aback to be asked and he studied her in his silent way, his golden eyes piercing. “I believe Da'Fen has a point, my lord. Diplomacy is worth attempting before bloodshed. We have spilled enough of our own in fruitless endeavors. Wisdom dictates a different course of action should be tried.”

“You truly believe that, old friend?” Solas asked, seeming to accept defeat rather more quickly than Carly liked. That meant he was up to something.

“I do, my lord. Either it works, and we reach peaceful settlement with Orlais, or it doesn't and we will know.”


End file.
